The Fort Worth Press - Thousands protest in Germany urging faster green shift

In Berlin, Cologne, Hamburg and Munich, crowds took to the streets waving placards emblazoned with slogans including "renewables are our life" and "escape the fossil fuel trap".

A coalition of campaign groups organising the demonstrations said about 80,000 people took part nationwide, although police gave lower figures.

"The war in Iran and exploding energy prices make it very clear once again that we need to free ourselves from fossil fuels as quickly as possible," Christoph Bautz from campaign group Campact, which helped organise the protests, told AFP at the Berlin demonstration.

He claimed that Economy Minister Katherina Reiche, from Merz's centre-right CDU party, was seeking to slow down the shift to renewables, which he said is "completely out of touch with the times and serves only the oil and gas industry".

Merz's coalition, and in particular Reiche -- a former energy company executive -- have come under fire over various policies, including support for watering down EU-wide car emissions rules and their plans to build more gas-fired power plants.

The chancellor argues steps need to be taken to relieve the burdens on Germany's struggling manufacturers, and help revive Europe's biggest economy whose heavy industry has suffered from high energy costs.

While Germany has greatly expanded solar and wind power, with most of the country's electricity now provided by renewables, the new government's actions have fuelled fears it will miss its ambitious climate targets.

Luisa Neubauer, a leading figure in the Fridays for Future movement in Germany, told AFP at the Berlin demonstration that she was "positively surprised" by how many people had turned up.

"I'm surprised that the federal government thinks it can get away with its lame excuses and its obstruction of the energy transition," she said. "No one here is buying that."

The organisers, who included groups like Greenpeace and WWF, said about 24,000 people demonstrated in Berlin, 30,000 in Cologne, 15,000 in Hamburg and 12,000 in Munich.

Police in Berlin gave an initial estimate of 9,000, and in Cologne 4,500.

K.Ibarra--TFWP