Climate activists protest inside German Finance Ministry

Climate activists held a protest inside the German Finance Ministry in the capital on Monday, calling for debt relief for poorer countries and demanding a meeting with minister Christian Lindner, reported dpa.

According to police, they stood and sat in the entrance area and on a balcony of the large building in central Berlin.

The group Letzte Generation (Last Generation) and others tweeted videos showing young people holding up banners in the building.

"We demand that the richest countries of the Global North begin to pay their climate debt. The unconditional cancellation of all illegitimate global South debt is part of repairing hundreds of years of injustices," tweeted one of the protest groups.

They criticized Lindner for making "empty promises."

According to the activists, demonstrators also stuck themselves with glue to parts of the ministry building.

The ministry said that Lindner spoke to the demonstrators, who then departed peacefully.

Lindner tweeted: "In Washington we met African countries to discuss debt. We'll stay on it. So I didn't need the [protest] action, but it didn't disrupt the service."

Meanwhile, demonstrators blocked motorway exits in several places in Berlin again in the morning, in what has become a regular form of climate protest.

Berlin's Senator of the Interior, Iris Spranger, criticized the false fire alarms by climate activists in recent days, for example in the Reichstag parliament building, in a Bundestag office building and at a major world health congress.

"People are playing with human lives here. It's not funny and we don't find it funny either," the senator said.