German Chancellor Merz Draws Criticism for Skipping Antalya Climate Summit: Birthday Dinner at an Italian Restaurant Instead
BERLIN — German Chancellor Friedrich Merz will not attend the UN Climate Change Conference (COP31), which opens on November 9 in Antalya, Türkiye. A government spokesperson cited only other commitments and declined to give a specific reason when asked. Environment Minister Carsten Schneider and Development Minister Reem Alabali Radovan will represent Germany at the two-week conference.
German chancellors have attended the climate conference's leaders' gathering for the past five years, and Merz's absence has drawn criticism from the opposition and climate activists. Katharina Dröge, parliamentary group leader of the Green Party, said it would send a devastating signal to the world. Climate activist Luisa Neubauer said that after a year of record heat, the absence was an absolute breach of taboo that abandoned young people in the climate crisis. Greenpeace Germany called the absence an embarrassment.
Criticism has also focused on Merz's plans for his birthday. According to the German newspaper Westfalenpost, Merz said on the evening of November 6 that on Wednesday, November 11, his 71st birthday, instead of attending a concert at the Berlin Philharmonic as originally planned, he would go for a nice meal at an Italian restaurant with his wife and daughter, who are coming to visit; a cabinet meeting is still scheduled that morning. Neubauer seized on the detail, calling his absence from the summit a 'Bella Italia' absence.
Germany's Independent Council of Experts on Climate Change has previously said the country is set to miss its 2030 emissions targets without additional measures, which has added to the scrutiny of the chancellor's decision to skip this year's conference.
(Source: dpa)
Source: dpa
Published by GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 图：土耳其安塔利亚老港，COP31将在该市举行。Mike Finn 摄，CC BY 2.0，经 Wikimedia Commons。 / Photo: The old harbour of Antalya, Türkiye, host city of COP31. Photo by Mike Finn, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
