Environmental activists across the world slammed German engineering conglomerate Siemens on Monday after it decided to carry on with a controversial coal mine project in Australia. After holding talks with environmentalists in Berlin last week, CEO Joe Kaeser said Sunday that Siemens would go ahead with plans to provide rail infrastructure for the Carmichael mine in Queensland.
On Monday, activists from the "Fridays for Future" movement responded by protesting in front of the company's offices in 15 German cities, including Berlin, Hamburg and Munich.
In a statement on their website "Fridays for Future" said Siemens' decision was "catastrophic", and that the mine "threatens worldwide efforts to keep global warming under 1.5 degrees Celsius."
Australian climate activist Varsha Yajman, 17, told AFP that the decision would "destroy" Siemens' reputation.
"It is time for Kaeser to realise the consequences of his actions and give us the sustainable future we deserve."
Siemens, which aims to be carbon neutral by 2030, signed a contract in December to provide rail signalling services for the Carmichael project.
The proposed mine, owned by India's Adani group, has long been controversial, but anger over the multi-billion-euro project has been fanned by Australia's catastrophic bushfire season.
Amid growing calls for Siemens to quit the project, Kaeser met with leading "Fridays for Future" activist Luisa Neubauer in Berlin on Friday and claimed he was "on the same side" as environmentalists.
On Saturday, Sweden's top climate activist Greta Thunberg also urged Kaeser to make what she said was "the only right decision".
"It seems that Siemens have the power to stop, delay or at least interrupt the building of the huge Adani coal mine," Thunberg tweeted. But Kaeser announced on Sunday evening that Siemens would "fulfil their contractual obligations" on the project.
"While I do have a lot of empathy for environmental matters, I do need to balance different interests of different stakeholders," he said.
The CEO nonetheless pledged to "give environmental concerns more attention in the future" by setting up a sustainability committee. Neubauer accused Siemens of having made an "historic mistake". Toby Thorpe, from School Strike for Climate Australia, called the decision "appalling".
"Their support not only fuels climate change, but will fuel more natural disasters among the likes of the bushfire crisis in Australia."
The open-cut Carmichael mine is set to become operational next year and produce up to 27 million tonnes of coal annually.
Adani spent years trying to secure private finance for the coal mine before announcing in 2018 it was self-financing a trimmed down, $2-billion version of the project.
Supporters say the mine will bring hundreds of much-needed jobs to rural Queensland in eastern Australia.
But conservationists say the project threatens local vulnerable species and means coal will have to be shipped from a port near the already-damaged Great Barrier Reef. Much of the coal from the mine will be burned in India, a country with some of the highest levels of air pollution on Earth. The United Nations says emissions must decline more than 7.5 percent annually in order to hit the 1.5C temperature goal laid out in the 2015 Paris deal.
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