We are on the right path
Oliver Worm, Greenpeace climate expert

Energy consumption in Germany has fallen by about 60 per cent in the last twenty-five years. The former industrialised countries now operate a "sustainable market economy" by relying on solar energy for two-thirds of their requirements.

They use wind energy, biomass, and decentralised hydro and solar power. The heavily checked rise in population in the former develo-ping countries gives further cause for hope, as does the fact that the concentration of greenhouse gas in the atmosphere is stabilising. The danger of a collapse in the climate seems to have been vanquished. What then remains for an environmental organisation to do?

After thirty years' struggle to protect the environment and the climate Greenpeace is ending its transport, energy and climate campaigns. True to the motto, "We are working to make ourselves superfluous," some fifteen people at Greenpeace are shortly going into early retirement. Their campaigns have been successfully concluded - a success for Greenpeace and the environment. In future the organisation will concentrate more on the issues of closed-cycle production and use of resources, especially water and forests, avoidance and minimisation of toxic waste, and genetic engineering. Short-term profit interests continue to endanger the urgently needed changeover to a way of life and kind of economic management which respect the planet's natural limits. Here Greenpeace will continue to warn, keep watch and take effective action.

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