Austria community action

The climate petition ("Klimavolksbegehren") is an independent and non-partisan initiative started by many volunteers who want to stand up to climate policy together. In the meantime, it is supported by many other volunteers, numerous NGOs, civil society initiatives and famous personalities. The vision behind this is that Austria acts as a role model in climate protection. This climate protection is not seen as the responsibility of individuals, but as the responsibility of society as a whole. Politics should create the legal framework for this. The goal is to ensure a fair future worth living for children.

The demands of the initiative include a right to climate protection in the constitution, a binding, scientifically based CO₂ budget in the climate protection law, a climate audit office that checks compliance with the CO₂ budget, a climate check of existing and new climate-relevant laws and regulations, true costs and an eco-social tax reform. In addition, the complete dismantling of climate-damaging subsidies, a nationwide supply of climate-friendly mobility, as well as guaranteed financing of the energy transition.The period of signatures took place from 22 to 29 June 2020 in Austria. The petition reached a total of 380,590 signatures, which is 5.96% of the eligible voters. The governing parties ÖVP and Greens passed a resolution in spring 2021 to implement demands of the climate petition.

Different grassroots group are active in Austria. Fridays for Future youth groups regularly organise climate protests in Austria. In the September 2019 climate strikes, between 65,000 and 150,000 people protested for better climate politics, among them 30,000 to 80,000 in Vienna and 16,000 to 18,000 in Innsbruck. The activist group "System Change, not Climate Change" has staged several actions for climate protection, among them disturbing a speech by the former Austrian chancellor Sebastian Kurz at the Austrian World Summit in Vienna in 2018.

In a Eurobarometer opinion poll on climate change published in September 2008, 90% of Austrian respondents thought that climate change was a serious problem. In 2019, 86% of respondents said it was a serious problem, below the average of the 28 EU member states.

The Transitforum Austria Tirol is an Austrian all-party non-governmental organization, which advocates for a reduction of international through traffic on Austrian roads, for environmental, economic, and medical reasons. The initiative is primarily targeted at truck transport.

The organization was founded in Tyrol, which is significantly affected by international through traffic, but later teamed up with similar groups across Austria. It is well known for its use of nonviolent direct action in campaigns, e.g. blocking motorways.

A blocking of the Brenner Pass lead to the Court of Justice case Schmidberger v Austria.

The Transitforum Austria Tirol and its chairman Fritz Gurgiser also voice their concerns, and often harsh criticism on politicians regularly in regional media, especially in Tyrol.

Austria, formally the Republic of Austria, is a landlocked country in Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous city and state. Austria is bordered by Germany to the northwest, the Czech Republic to the north, Slovakia to the northeast, Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the west. The country occupies an area of 83,879 km² (32,386 sq mi) and has a population of around 9 million.

The area of today's Austria has been inhabited since at least the Paleolithic period. Around 400 BC, it was inhabited by the Celts and then annexed by the Romans in the late 1st century BC. Christianization in the region began in the 4th and 5th centuries, during the late Roman period, followed by the arrival of numerous Germanic tribes during the Migration Period. Austria, as a unified state, emerged from the remnants of the Eastern and Hungarian March at the end of the first millennium, first as a frontier march of the Holy Roman Empire, it then developed into a Duchy in 1156, and was made an Archduchy in 1453. Being the heartland of the Habsburg monarchy since the late 13th century, Austria was a major imperial power in Central Europe for centuries and from the 16th century, Vienna was also serving as the Holy Roman Empire's administrative capital. Before the dissolution of the empire two years later, in 1804, Austria established its own empire, which became a great power and one of the largest states in Europe. The empire's defeat in wars and the loss of territories in the 1860s paved the way for the establishment of Austria-Hungary in 1867.