Climate Protestors Delay Start Of Berlin Formula E Race By Climbing Onto Track

Part of wider protests across Berlin on Sunday and Monday, the group says we’re on the “highway to climate hell”

by Sebastien Bell

April 24, 2023 at 17:42

by Sebastien Bell

The start of the Berlin E-Prix was delayed this Sunday by members of the climate activism group, Letzte Generation (German for “Last Generation”). The short-lived protest was quickly cleared when the members of the group were forcefully removed from the hot track.

While the choice of venue may seem a little unusual—Formula E advertising itself on its electric power—the action was not necessarily a protest of the series. Instead, breaking onto the track was part of a larger series of protests happening across Berlin on Sunday and Monday. In all, police said they detained around 200 people across the city, reports Reuters.

Rather than objecting to the E-Prix specifically, the group seems to have been trying to use the attention directed at it to promote its own message. In a tweet, the group said it is seeking to “sound the alarm” about climate change “because we’re on the highway to climate hell.”

Read: Climate Activists Pour Nearly 18 Lbs Of Flour On BMW M1 Painted By Andy Warhol

The group claiming responsible for the protest may be familiar to our readers, as the same group that poured 18 lbs of flour on a BMW M1 art car painted by Andy Warhol at a museum in Italy.

advertisement scroll to continue

The group is far from the only one participating in these kinds of public demonstrations. Last year, activists broke onto the track at the British Grand Prix. Members of a group called ‘Just Stop Oil’, they were arrested and three eventually received suspended prison sentences, while three more received community service instead.

Elsewhere, other groups have started targeting car shows. At the Paris Auto Show in October 2022, a group called Extinction Rebellion France glued themselves to classic Ferraris and poured paint on them.

The group denounced the automakers for promoting personal cars as the future of transportation, favoring instead public transit and other forms of transportation. That’s a message that may resonate particularly well in Berlin, where a petition recently called on the city to ban cars, regardless of what powers them, reasoning that they not only waste resources, but that they place pedestrians in danger, too.

As part of the most recent round of protests, Letzte Generation said it wanted the federal government to submit a detailed plan on how it will meet international targets designed to prevent average global temperatures from rising by more than 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels.

Photo Letzte Generation via Twitter