Climate activists have used dye to turn the fountains in multiple German cities green, in protest against the government’s decision to use liquefied natural gas to compensate for significantly reduced gas imports from Russia. 

Extinction Rebellion protests German government’s LNG policy

It might look like St Patrick’s Day celebrations a few months late, but the reason why the water in many German monuments turned green on Wednesday morning was actually to protest the government’s environmental policy.

Responding to the German-government-supported EU decision to recently categorise gas as “sustainable”, activists from Extinction Rebellion organised a coordinated protest, dying fountains in Berlin, Hamburg, Munich, Bonn and Essen, among other places, green, and writing next to them the message “LNG - unfortunately not green (Leider Nicht Grün). The activists used uranine, a dye used by water companies that is harmless to humans, animals and the environment.

Alongside pictures of the Hygieia- & Vierländerin fountains in Hamburg dyed green, Extinction Rebellion Deutschland tweeted, “But gas is a fossil fuel and is partly fracked. Fracking is banned in large parts of Europe but [German Economics Minister] Habeck is importing fracking gas.”

In another tweet, Extinction Rebellion Deutschland said that liquefied natural gas “leads to neo-colonial exploitation and oppression in addition to environmentally harmful consequences.”

Why is LNG so controversial?

LNG or liquefied natural gas comes from deep within the earth’s crust and is sometimes extracted using a process called fracking, which requires chemicals and large amounts of water and is generally considered hugely destructive for local ecosystems. The production, liquefaction, transport and sale of LNG are also responsible for large amounts of methane emissions, a greenhouse gas.

By building new terminals for liquefied natural gas, Germany is looking to expand its supply of gas imports from countries other than Russia.