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 mobilising 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." On 13 January 2020, it was announced that Neubauer had turned down an offer by Joe Kaeser to sit on the Siemens energy board. In a statement Neubauer said that “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,” she explained. “That is not compatible with my role as climate activist.” 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”.
Criticism
Neubauer received negative press coverage for her past flights to countries all around the world; she responded that any criticism of her personal consumption distracts from larger structural and political issues. , a professor of political science at the University of Regensburg, accused her of using the term “old white men“ as a synonym for people with different opinions to discredit people with different opinions. Neubauer faced backlashes and is being accused of having a sexist world-view after claiming that men as a gender have failed in human history and women would do a much better job. Furthermore, some claim that she fails to position herself against the rapid rising of the global human population. Neubauer was criticized for her statement regarding the ways of democracy. She stated that some causes like those pursued by Fridays for Future cannot be handled swiftly and eagerly enough by democratic means.
Other notable views
While positioning herself against the comparison of the climate change and the Holocaust, she has written in her latest book that the climate change is the greatest disaster in human history. She rejects ideas to deal with the climate consequences by geoengineering and doesn't believe electric cars can really help to solve the general problem of the human lust for neverending economic growth. She holds today's political class responsible, especially white men from the northern hemisphere, for being painfully slow while implementing needed climate measures. Therefore, the northern atmosphere is obligated to decrease their standard of living to pay for the future change of the global south towards an environmental way of life.