Status: 11/12/2022 3:48 p.m
An alliance of environmental associations and climate policy organizations called for a demonstration in Lützerath at the Garzweiler II opencast mine on Saturday. Demonstrations were held in 20 other German cities at the same time.
Lignite excavators, wind turbines, activists wrapped in thick scarves and some masked stand in the wind on the edge of the cliff and look at the hole. At the same time as the 27th UN climate conference in Egypt (COP27), those involved are calling for a coal phase-out in Germany that is compatible with compliance with the 1.5-degree limit. The village of Lützerath at the open-pit mine, which is threatened with demolition, is to be saved for this purpose. The police Aachen expected around 2000 demonstrators in advance. According to the organizers, around 2,200 people demonstrated.
Criticism of “free ticket” for coal mining
Lützerath is to be demolished at the end of February. It has become a symbol for many other villages that have already been demolished for lignite mining. Organizations such as “Lützerath Leben” want to save the village on the one hand and on the other hand criticize the federal and North Rhine-Westphalian governments for allowing the RWE group to extract 280 million tons of coal from the Garzweiler II opencast mine. This amount is six times more than would be permitted to comply with the 1.5 degree limit of the Paris climate agreement. The climate groups are calling on the state government of North Rhine-Westphalia and the federal government to withdraw the coal deal and to significantly reduce the permitted amount of coal. Robert Habeck and Mona Neubaur from the Greens and Markus Krebber from RWE recently presented figures on the coal compromise. Up to 280 million tons of coal would be burned as a result of the early phase-out of coal, while the same amount would remain in the ground.
2000 demonstrators are expected
At the demo on Saturday, they called: All villages remain, Bund für environment and Nature Conservation Germany (BUND), Campact, Fridays For Future Germany, Greenpeace Germany, climate-Allianz Germany, Lützerath Live! and nature conservation youth NRW. In the call for the demo it says: “RWE is having wind turbines demolished these days in order to produce even more coal: This is how the whole absurdity of the current energy policy is shown in Lützerath.” Samira Ghandour from Fridays for Future speaks at the press conference of the large demonstration as the youngest activist in front of the yellow cross, which is around six meters high, the symbol that Greenpeace set up to maintain the 1.5 degree limit and the village of Lützerath. She says: “We will stand here, we will fight and strike.” Dirk Janssen from BUND then said: “It’s just not enough to celebrate a coal phase-out by 2030, it depends on how much we burn by then.”
Protest action throughout Germany
Decentralized protest actions against the threatened demolition of Lützerath are taking place in over 20 cities in Germany today. In Aachen, activists distributed yellow crosses on street lamps and trees in the city last night. The yellow crosses are meant to symbolize the preservation of Lützerath.
Source: wdr.de