Demands

Core demands of the Climate Camp Leipziger Land 2021

Within the framework of the four pillars of the Climate Camp – Action, Education, Networking, Living Utopias – the Climate Camp Leipziger Land sets this year the focus on mobility justice. This goal results in the following core demands for us:

1. stop deportations! Right to stay for all!

Safe ports instead of airports!

The airport Halle/Leipzig is a central place of (mass) deportations. People are regularly taken into deportation custody here and sent back to countries where they have no future, where their lives are in danger. The fact that the causes of these people’s flight are closely linked to the man-made climate crisis is too little reflected. Flight is part of the ethical, political and ecological consequences of the climate crisis. This climate crisis is rooted in the capitalist economic system, which not only looks back on colonial history with firmly anchored racism, but also continues to perpetuate it. Deportations from the capitalist Global North are the best example of this. We therefore demand a right to stay for all instead of deportations. We demand an end to racist border policies in which citizenship decides which life is valuable.

2. stop airport expansion!

#cancelLEJ

Around the Halle/Leipzig airport, local residents:inen have been forming protests for over 10 years. They demand a ban on night flights to end the constant, sickening noise pollution from cargo traffic they are exposed to day and night. But the voices of these people are not being heard. Instead of a ban on night flights, the unprofitable regional airport is now to be expanded in order to open the door even wider to the DHL corporation for climate-damaging logistics and bullshit flights. We support the demand of the residents and demand: Deconstruction instead of expansion. It is proven that people with less income are more likely to live near infrastructures that produce noise and pollution, like airports or highways. Therefore, we demand: The costs of mobility must be distributed just as fairly as the opportunities for using it – for mobility justice!

3. subsidies for climate justice instead of DHL and capitalism

Climate justice!

The airport Halle/Leipzig serves as a hub for freight traffic by DHL. Subsidized by the state, this logistics hub is now to be expanded even further. In addition, the airport is a military airport; weapons, military machines and soldiers are transported here. The freight transported from Leipzig thus symbolizes an exploitative, capitalist system, which we oppose. Behind the goods arriving and departing here are sickening, poor working conditions in logistics in Germany and in countries of the global south. Behind every airplane are emissions caused by the production and transport of the shipped products, further fueling the climate crisis.

Thus, the #LEJ clearly shows us what we want: A systemic change that drives climate justice. Short supply chains, regional products, criticism of the “more and more” of consumer society and good work for a good life for all. We need a shift away from the growth paradigm to finally put a stop to climate change and prevent the global North from living even further at the expense of others.