Luisa Neubauer

Her grandmother Dagmar Reemtsma (born 1933 as Dagmar von Hänisch) was married for some years to Feiko Reemtsma of the Reemtsma cigarette empire and got involved in the anti-nuclear movement of the 1980s.

She sensitized Luisa Neubauer to the climate problem and gave her her share of the Taz cooperative.

Two of Neubauer's three older siblings live in London.

Her cousin Carla Reemtsma is also a climate activist.

Luisa-Marie Neubauer (born 21 April 1996) is a German climate activist.

She is one of the main organisers of the school strike for climate movement in Germany, where it is commonly referred to under its alternative name Fridays for Future.

She advocates a climate policy that complies with and surpasses the Paris Agreement and endorses de-growth.

Neubauer is a member of Alliance 90/The Greens and the Green Youth.

Neubauer was born in Hamburg as the youngest of four siblings.

Her mother is a nurse.

Neubauer grew up in Hamburg's Iserbrook district and completed her high school diploma in 2014 at the Marion-Dönhoff-Gymnasium in the affluent Blankenese neighborhood.

In the year after her graduation she worked for a development aid project in Tanzania and on an organic farm in England.

In 2015 she started studying geography at the University of Göttingen.

She did a semester abroad at the University College London and received scholarships from the German government and the Alliance 90/The Greens-affiliated Heinrich Böll Foundation.

Neubauer has been a youth ambassador of the non-governmental organization ONE since 2016.

She was also active for the Foundation for the Rights of Future Generations, 350.org, the Right Livelihood Award foundation, the Fossil Free campaign and The Hunger Project.

With the campaign ''Divest!

Withdraw your money!'' she forced the University of Göttingen to stop investing in industries that make money with coal, oil or gas.

As of the beginning of 2019, Neubauer became known as one of the leading Fridays For Future activists.

Many media outlets refer to her as the "German face of the movement."

Neubauer rejects comparisons of herself and other strike organisers to Greta Thunberg, saying: "We're building a mass-movement and reaching out quite far in our methods of mobilizing and gaining attention. What Greta does is incredibly inspiring but actually relatively far from that."

Neubauer does not see the strikes as a means of directly affecting politics.

More important is the work behind the strikes: "What we're doing is incredibly sustainable. We're creating structures and turning the events into educational experiences. And we're leading debates on the principles of climate protection."

In 2020 she completed her studies with a Bachelor of Science.

Following the protests of Fridays For Future Germany against Siemens for a specific infrastructure project in Australia, Neubauer met with Joe Kaeser in January 2020.

On 13 January 2020 she announced that she had turned down an offer for a seat on the Siemens Energy's supervisory board: "If I were to take it up, I would be obliged to represent the company's interests and could never be an independent critic of Siemens," Neubauer explained.

"That is not compatible with my role as [a] climate activist.".

Joe Kaeser stated that he did not offer Neubauer a seat in the companies' Board, but that he is open to have Neubauer on a Board on environmental questions

On the day before Siemens announced that they will keep the contract with Adani to provide the rail infrastructure of the Carmichael coal mine in Australia.

Neubauer told the news agency DPA: "We asked Kaeser to do everything possible to stop the Adani mine. Instead he will now profit from this disastrous project."

She added that this decision was "so last century" and that Kaeser was making an "unforgivable mistake".

Following the start of 2023 Israel–Hamas war on 7October 2023, Neubauer has been dealing with conflicting positions within both Fridays for Future Germany and the wider climate movement.

In an interview with Der Spiegel, Neubauer indicated her expectations for the COP28 climate meeting in these terms:

"It will be really complicated. There are intensive efforts on the part of international organizations to place Palestinian suffering at the center of the debates at the climate conference. In this case, we will work to ensure that Jewish suffering and the terror of Hamas are also mentioned. Of course, we will also work with human rights organizations to stand up for political prisoners, as we did [at COP27]."

Der Spiegel wrote elsewhere:

"The climate movement is now facing a potential schism. The German chapter of Fridays for Future has distanced itself from the international movement, with Luisa Neubauer, the group's most prominent member in the country, telling Der Spiegel in an interview that 'the loss of trust is immense'."

Neubauer had earlier separated herself from public statements by the Fridays For Future international board regarding the military action by Israel.

The board had openly supported Palestinian nationalism and described the bombardment of the Gaza Strip by Israeli forces as "agenocide".

Speaking on behalf on Fridays For Future Germany, Neubauer told the Deutsche Presse-Agentur that FFF Germany "firmly condemned Hamas terrrorism" and stated that the social media managers of FFF's international channels had "improperly used [those] platforms to share disinformation and antisemitism".

Although Neubauer is a member of Alliance 90/The Greens and the Green Youth, she says she does not actively pursue party work.