Greens on climate policy: “We have not only decided on helpful things”

The Greens had to make painful compromises in government, as Environment Minister Lemke admitted at the party conference. The coal deal in North Rhine-Westphalia and the way the village of Lützerath was dealt with caused severe criticism in the debate.

Federal Environment Minister Steffi Lemke admitted painful compromises during participation in the traffic light coalition at the federal party conference of the Greens. “God knows, we have not only made helpful decisions in recent months for climate protection,” she said in her speech. The town of Lützerath in the coal mining area in North Rhine-Westphalia is a symbol of this.

In the party conference debate on climate policy, however, Lemke called on the delegates to keep an eye on what the federal government has achieved so far. As an example, she cited the plan for an early phase-out of coal. “If 280 million tons of lignite remain in the ground, then that’s not nothing, it’s a great success,” said Lemke.

“The big picture manifests itself in Lützerath”

The Fridays for Future activist Luisa Neubauer saw things differently. In her speech, she paid tribute to the green politicians in the federal government. These reigned in the hardest of times. At the same time, she sharply criticized politics. She also cited the Lützerath settlement, which is to be demolished in order to mine coal, as an example. “The big picture is manifested in Lützerath. This village sits on millions of tons of CO2 and is a real fortress for our break with the Paris Agreement,” said Neubauer. She is in line with the Green Youth, which demands that the town be saved and that the lignite underneath not be digged.

Even before the party congress, the coal agreement concluded between the green-led economics ministries in the federal government and in North Rhine-Westphalia and the energy company RWE caused debate and criticism. This provides for the phase-out of coal in the Rhenish mining area to be brought forward by eight years to 2030. At the same time, in view of the current energy crisis, two lignite-fired power plants are to run longer than previously planned.

Neubauer criticizes “ecological hyperrealism”

In her speech, Neubauer attacked this agreement head-on when she explained: “If RWE uses the utilization of all power plants in the 1920s that was made possible in the deal, then not a single ton of CO2 will be saved by the early coal phase-out in 2030.” As long as “fossil companies make the rules for the energy transition, there will be no energy transition,” she said.

According to his own statements, Neubauer is currently experiencing “a kind of ecological hyperrealism” among the Greens, in which anti-climate decisions are defended as plausibly as possible. The Green Party Congress must “be the corrective” and change the decision. It is up to the Greens in the traffic light coalition “to draw and defend the ecological boundaries,” she warned.

Lang: When in doubt, opt for a less than perfect solution

The green co-party leader Ricarda Lang replied that there will always be moments in the upcoming decisions “where we will disappoint you. There will be moments where we will say: If the decision is between doing something, what is not perfect and doing nothing at all, then we will go for the imperfect solution.”

At the end of the debate at the party conference, a motion by the Federal Executive Committee on climate policy will be put to the vote. The Green Youth submitted an amendment calling for a “moratorium on evictions” for Lützerath. “In the short term, no facts of destruction should be created around Lützerath,” the text says.