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07.10.2026
Institutskolloquium IfP (21.10.2026) – The German climate movement and Palestine: between calls for climate justice and realities of (energy) imperialism
Speaker: Dr. Benjamin Schütze (Arnold Bergstraesser Institut, ABI)
Wednesday, October 21, 2026, 16:00 (c.t.)
Room 124, Institut für Politikwissenschaft, or online via Zoom
About the lecture:
While climate movements worldwide have rallied around the notion of climate coloniality and have expressed solidarity with Palestine – understanding the ongoing destruction of the earth and of Palestine as interlinked – German climate groups have by and large remained silent or support(ed) Israel, thereby at least implicitly condoning ongoing genocide. This presentation explores German climate movements’ positions on Palestine. It argues that their failure to turn abstract calls for climate justice into concrete solidarity with Palestine has helped reinforce authoritarian practices in Germany and has helped facilitate ecological destruction and devastation in the Middle East. Fridays for Future Germany, Letzte Generation (LG), Extinction Rebellion (XR) Germany and Ende Gelände technocratised their otherwise highly politicised understandings of climate justice when it came to Palestine, pre-empted dissent and repressed activists by branding them antisemites, thereby positioning them outside of ‘acceptable politics’. Considering its failure to speak out against Israel’s devastation of the ecological foundations of life in Palestine and beyond, and considering its participation in the repression of pro-Palestine activists in Germany, the article concludes that the German climate movement must by and large be understood as a continuation of German politics and as a proponent of energy imperialism, rather than as part of a global climate justice movement.
Dr. Benjamin Schuetze is Senior Researcher and Leader of a DFG-funded Emmy Noether Research Group (‘Renewable Energies, Renewed Authoritarianisms? The Political Economy of Solar Energy in the MENA’) at the Arnold Bergstraesser Institute (ABI) in Freiburg. His research focuses on energy politics, the politics of intervention and authoritarian practices, and has been published with, among others, Energy Policy, ISQ, Security Dialogue, Geopolitics and Cambridge University Press (‘Promoting Democracy, Reinforcing Authoritarianism: US and European Policy in Jordan’, 2019). Ben is a member of the directorate of the German Middle East Studies Association (DAVO).
The lecture will be held in English