Climate Activist Seeks Justice for Friend Lost to Floods

The Personal Impact of Climate Change

• 💔 Ben's activism is driven by the tragic death of his close friend, Rosa Reichel, who drowned in flash floods in Belgium in July 2021.
• 🎯 He founded the NGO "Climate Justice for Rosa" to highlight that the climate crisis affects real people, not just abstract statistics.

Advocating for Climate Victims

• 🏛️ Ben focuses his advocacy on EU institutions, aiming to raise awareness and demand action.
• 📝 He criticizes the lack of official lists for climate disaster victims, contrasting it with lists created for terrorist attacks, and advocates for recognizing and remembering those lost.
• 💡 In collaboration with journalists and survivors, he helped create a list of 39 victims from the 2021 floods and projected their names across Brussels.

Creative Activism and Education

• 🎭 Ben co-wrote a solo play about his friendship with Rosa and the events leading up to her death, aiming to convey the human cost of climate change to audiences, particularly young people.
• 📈 The play has been booked for 200 dates, primarily for school audiences, addressing the significant concern young Europeans have about climate change.

Legal Action Against Fossil Fuel Companies

• ⚖️ Ben is involved in a groundbreaking criminal complaint filed against the leaders of the French oil giant Total, alleging their continued fossil fuel exploitation contributed to climate disaster deaths.
• ✊ He argues that legal action is necessary because politicians have not stopped fossil fuel companies, and activists should not be criminalized for demanding accountability.

Achieving Recognition for Climate Victims

• 🎗️ Through his lobbying efforts, Ben was instrumental in the European Parliament voting to create a day of remembrance for global victims of climate change, commemorated annually on July 15th.
• 🌳 A memorial tree was planted in Rosa's name as part of this initiative, symbolizing the ongoing recognition of climate loss.