BERLIN 

Thousands of people across Germany took to the streets on Saturday, demanding more climate protection.

Organized by Fridays for Future, the protests called for an immediate halt to all new natural gas projects in Germany.

"While the climate crisis is destroying livelihoods around the world, the German government is further fueling it," Fridays for Future said in a statement.

According to the group, more than 50,000 people participated in more than 80 German cities. There were 4,300 participants in the capital Berlin and 5,000 in Hamburg. In Munich, police reported around 1,500 demonstrators.

Placards attacked, among others, Energy Minister Katherina Reiche for her energy policy. The center-right government coalition of Christian Democrats and Social Democrats aims to build gas-fired power plants with a capacity of up to 20 gigawatts by 2030.

They are intended to step in during the coal phase-out when renewables fail to meet electricity demand – for example, during "dark lulls" when there's no sun and no wind.

In an interview with the public broadcaster hr, Carla Reemtsma, spokesperson for Fridays for Future, accused the federal government of deliberately unsettling citizens and stirring up sentiment against climate protection.

"They are actively sowing doubts about the feasibility and the usefulness of the project, even though the consensus is quite clear: We must move away from fossil fuels," she said.

As a former gas lobbyist, Reiche is prolonging a climate-damaging and expensive business model, Reemtsma added.