US may miss out on green tech boom: Germany
Europe must seize on the "huge economic opportunities" offered by the green technology boom, Germany said Wednesday -- adding it was up to the United States if it decided to miss out.
Since returning to the White House, President Donald Trump's administration has withdrawn the United States from the landmark Paris Agreement for a second time and vowed to focus heavily on fossil fuel extraction.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said at a climate conference in Berlin that he "deeply regretted" the United States leaving the Paris climate accord and stressed the "enormous" economic opportunities it is missing out on.
"The global market for climate-friendly key technologies continues to grow rapidly," Scholz told the Petersberg Climate Dialogue.
He said investments in the global energy transition had exceeded the $2 trillion mark, which "corresponds to the volume of the entire global oil trade today".
The meeting's host, Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, said economic data contradicted the "old prejudice" that investing in climate protection was "unaffordable".
"We all know that there are spoilers in the world right now who want to prevent" greater climate investments, she told the first major meeting of the year related to the COP30 summit taking place in Brazil in November.
Baerbock added that "today climate protection and economic growth no longer contradict one another".
"Climate protection opens up huge economic opportunities, and we as Europeans want to seize them", she added.
Europe especially wants to work with "companies and countries in Latin America, Africa and other regions around the world," Baerbock said.
"If others, such as the United States, decide to stay out of it, that is their decision."
- 'Renewing economies' -
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres echoed Baerbock's message, telling the Berlin meeting in a virtual address that "renewables are renewing economies".
"They are powering growth, creating jobs, lowering energy bills and cleaning our air. And every day, they become an even smarter investment."
Baerbock also hailed as "historic" a recent agreement struck in Germany to channel an extra 100 billion euros ($107 billion) to climate measures.
Her Greens, who are set to leave government after faring poorly in February elections, wrung the concession from other political parties in exchange for agreeing to support plans for greater defence and infrastructure spending.
EU climate commissioner Wopke Hoekstra meanwhile warned that the world was living in "tremendously difficult times".
"We're facing problems literally from every direction -- and clearly also in the domain of climate action," he told the meeting.
Beyond the United States withdrawing from climate cooperation, there have also been concerns that the issue is being pushed down the global agenda by national security and economic pressures.
"But there's no alternative," Hoekstra stressed. "Humanity doesn't have an alternative and cannot wait.
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Source: Nick Ut / Getty As Donald Trump sparks chaos by illegally deploying troops to Los Angeles, as immigration raids intensify, and as protesters are flooding the streets to demand dignity for migrants, far too many Black folks are sitting back on social media platforms singing a tired, familiar song. It's being sung off-key with a false sense of safety and a dangerous misunderstanding of how white supremacist violence works. The chorus of retreat sounds something like this: 'Black folks need to stay home.' 'Let them handle it. This is their fight.' 'Most Latinos voted for this mess.' 'ICE don't target us. We've got citizenship.' 'I ain't marching for nobody who won't march for me .' 'Latinos don't like us anyway.' But what's really being said underneath all that deflection is this: 'If they come for Latinos, I'll be quiet, as long as they leave me and mine alone.' But if you study history, I mean really study history, then you should already know that they never leave us alone. Not for long. I get it. Black folks are tired. We've carried the weight of every major freedom movement in this country. We've bled. We've died. And we've been betrayed. We've shown up, over and over, only to be met with anti-blackness in return. But this ain't about who likes us. It's about who's next! What ICE is doing to migrants isn't just an immigration issue. It's white supremacist violence at its core. It's separating families. It's state violence. It's stalking and snatching people from homes and workplaces and making them disappear. It's caging children. And for Black folks in America, this should all feel deeply familiar. The white supremacist machine of state violence doesn't make distinctions based on citizenship status. What ICE is doing to Latinx, West Indian, and African migrants is part of the same machinery that has policed and abused Black American bodies for centuries. We know what it means to have our families torn about by the state. We know what it means to be told that we don't belong in the land we built. We know exactly what it's like to be criminalized simply for existing, to be dehumanized by everyday language, media propaganda, policies, and bureaucrats in uniform. Black folks know what it means to live under surveillance, to be chased, cuffed, caged, and disappeared. We are the descendants of people who had to run. From plantations. From the Fugitive Slave Act and slave catchers. From the KKK and lynch mobs. Even if you were born right here in America, with ancestors going all the way back to slave ships, that border violence still echoes through Black lives. The ol' 'I got my papers, I'm safe' is a delusion. That little blue passport won't stop you from getting profiled, harassed, arrested, or shot by a cop who sees your Black skin before your citizenship status or hears your command of English. Just ask the countless Black immigrants already deported, or the U.S.-born Black folks ICE illegally detained anyway. Do you think that racist ICE agents caught up in immigration hysteria and round-up quotas will stop to check birth certificates? Just ask Peter Sean Brown, who was detained in the Florida Keys when an ICE agent mistakenly detained him as an undocumented immigrant from Jamaica. He spent weeks in custody and eventually sued. Or, ask Davino Watson, a native New Yorker who was imprisoned as a 'deportable alien' for more than three years despite claiming citizenship and then denied compensation by the court system. Source: Nick Ut / Getty ICE detentions are triggered by racial profiling, flawed algorithms, and sloppy data. Skin complexion, language, and citizenship won't shield us. Think about all the Black folks walking around without real IDs to prove they're citizens. Over a quarter of Black adult citizens do not have a driver's license with their current name and/or address and 18% don't have a license at all, according to the Center for Democracy and Civic Engagement. If ICE can mistakenly detain Black and Brown Americans born in the U.S., even if they have documentation, then no one is immune. Some Black folks are also citing the 2024 election exit polls to justify staying home and staying silent, like the ICE protests don't concern us. 'Latinos voted for Trump.' But exit polls don't tell the whole story. They only sample registered voters who actually voted, and they never account for the millions of undocumented immigrants who can't vote. They also oversample precincts that don't match the demographic reality, skewing results toward the dominant group in those districts. Most Latinos, like Black Americans, did not vote for Trump. According to national polls, 56% of Latinos who voted cast their ballot for Kamala Harris, while 42% went for Trump. Yes, Trump made gains among Latino men, but gains don't equate to dominance. The Latino vote split along familiar gender and generational lines, just like our communities. We can't turn a sampling of voter turnout into 'most Latinos voted for Trump,' and we can't let bad math be an excuse to justify apathy. And there's this one: 'I ain't marching for nobody that won't march for me.' Or its equally tired fraternal twin: 'Latinos don't like us anyway.' This is scarcity-minded, historically illiterate nonsense that treats solidarity as some sort of tit-for-tat transaction. If that's how our ancestors thought, then there wouldn't have been an Underground Railroad, no Civil Rights Act, A Voting Rights Act, or a Montgomery Bus Boycott. Solidarity is a strategy, not some popularity contest. If you're out here claiming Latinos don't march for us, then clearly you haven't picked up a history book. Y'all must not know about Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta who led the United Farm Workers who stood with Martin Luther King Jr. Y'all must not know about the Puerto Rican Young Lords working hand-in-hand with the Black Panther Party to run free clinics, breakfast programs, and tenant organizing drives in Chicago and New York City. Or, about the Mexican students who took their cue from SNCC and Malcolm X during the 1968 East LA walkouts and launched the Chicano civil rights crusade. In recent years, Afro-Latinos have been at the forefront of Black Lives Matter chapters, organizing vigils, raising bail funding, and pushing for police accountability across the country. In Chicago's Little Village, Latino organizers launched the 'Brown Squad for Black Lives' and established a Black and Brown Unity food pantry. Martin Luther King III has been working alongside Mi Familia Vota , a national Black-Brown coalition whose mission is to combat hate crimes, anti-immigrant policies, and attacks on voting rights— together —not as separate communities. Just because these sustained interracial commitments and coalitions aren't trendy headlines or going viral on social media doesn't mean solidarity isn't unfolding in schools, community centers, neighborhoods, and politics. It's one thing to let white folks battle each other, whether it's MAGA vs. neoliberal, liberals vs. conservatives, or Karens vs. Capitol Hill. White folks battling each other is the empire fighting over who gets to steer the ship while it is already sinking. You want to sit back and watch that unfold while sipping tea or eating popcorn? Fine. Letting white folks eat each other doesn't carry the same moral weight as turning your back on another marginalized community facing the same white supremacist violence as us. Let's also remember that anti-Blackness is global. It lives in every community, including our own. Black Americans can be just as anti-immigrant, just as colorist, just as xenophobic, just as colonized in our thinking. So, if you're sitting out because of what some Latinos, West Indians, or Africans said about us, then you're not protecting yourself. You're just waiting for your turn. So, what do we do? Source: Jason Armond / Getty We organize. We show up at ICE protests so the system doesn't get to isolate people in silence. We donate to immigrant bail funds and deportation defense teams like the Haitian Bridge Alliance, Black Alliance for Just Immigration, and UndocuBlack. Use your platforms to amplify the stories, organizing, resistance, and victories of undocumented folks. Build local coalitions to organize teach-ins, mutual aid drives and community safety networks that bridge Black and Brown neighborhoods. We also need to unlearn the anti-immigrant, anti-Black, and anti-Indigenous narratives this country feeds us because solidarity starts in the mind. Black folks cannot afford to pretend that citizenship or birthright assures our protection. A system built on racial profiling, quotas, and militarized tactics never stops at 'not us.' It doesn't send ICE to the border and leave us in peace. These immigration raids strengthen a culture of normalized, dehumanizing state violence against anyone who looks 'other.' Immigration will become the excuse to expand the surveillance state and militarized policing in Black communities. This is absolutely our fight! Dr. Stacey Patton is an award-winning journalist and author of 'Spare The Kids: Why Whupping Children Won't Save Black America' and the forthcoming 'Strung Up: The Lynching of Black Children In Jim Crow America.' Read her Substack here . SEE ALSO: Trump's Job Corps 'Pause' Is MAGA's Plan To Eliminate Poor Youth Harvard And White America's Creepy Obsession With Hoarding Black Remains SEE ALSO Dear Black Folks: The Protests Against ICE Are Absolutely Our Fight Too [Op-Ed] was originally published on Black America Web Featured Video CLOSE
