The Austrian World Summit - a fig leaf?
Under the motto "We have the power", the AUSTRIAN WORLD SUMMIT took place for the seventh time in Vienna on May 16, 2023 with host and initiator Arnold Schwarzenegger. He traveled to the event in first class on a commercial airliner to attract media attention. While Schwarzenegger spoke inside about the climate crisis as an "emergency and this emergency requires action", climate activists from Fridays For Future Ukraine & Austria demonstrated outside the Hofburg, accusing the event of greenwashing. Environmental organizations were not invited to this year's summit.
"Because it's one of these many climate summits where important people meet - or they think they are". Once again, people are talking about what can be done, "while it has been clear for a very long time what needs to be done". Lena Schilling from Fridays fo Future
The climate activists' demands
As this climate summit is supposed to be about peace and climate protection, the activists from Fridays for Future are calling for the long overdue phase-out of Russian gas and the urgently needed laws for a radical heating and energy transition. An effective Renewable Heat Act (EWG) and an Energy Efficiency Act (EEffG) are needed for energy efficiency and the phase-out of gas heating systems.
What did the Summit achieve?
This year's Austrian World Summit climate conference at the Hofburg Palace in Vienna focused on the energy crisis and climate protection as a peacebuilding element.
In his welcoming speech, Federal President Van der Bellen said: "Whatever climate protection costs us today is nothing compared to what it would cost to do nothing." He also addressed the failure to meet the Paris climate targets and the excessive greenhouse gas emissions.
The guest list at the climate summit mainly included business representatives from large corporations such as BMW and Allianz to start-ups and hardly any female politicians, which is why no concrete measures can be derived and the usefulness of such events is questionable. "Of course, people with reach are there, and it is certainly welcome that something is being done. And because the conversation and public debate is being initiated. We need action, not just words. The question is: if it is not politically legitimized, how many actions can really follow?" says Viennese climate researcher Sarah Kessler, who conducts research at the Institute for Social Change and Sustainability at the Vienna University of Economics and Business. The summit runs the risk of being a fig leaf that distracts from the real issues and urgently needed political action.
"Politicians are failing to protect the climate," says the climate researcher, because otherwise protests such as the climate sticker campaigns and the summit would not be necessary.
That's why we #actinsteadofspeaking!
Picture©️Lilith Sauer
