The announcement by the federal government and the North Rhine-Westphalian state government to destroy the village of Lützerath in the Rhenish lignite mining area has been acknowledged by climate protectors with a call for new protests. “We will protect the village with the entire climate justice movement,” said Christopher Laumanns, a representative of the regional lignite opponents of “All Villages Remain”. A spokeswoman for the approximately 150 mostly young activists who are currently living in tree houses, tents and empty houses in Lützerath announced that they would “defend Lützerath” and in this way stand up for people in countries such as Pakistan or Somalia who are particularly suffering from the consequences of global climate change. The police are expected to evacuate the village in the fall.
On Tuesday morning, the two Greens Mona Neubaur and Robert Habeck, one responsible for business and climate protection in Düsseldorf and the other in the federal government, jointly announced an earlier phase-out of coal in West Germany: instead of 2038, all coal-fired power plants are to be shut down in 2030. However, as a result of the Russian war in the Ukraine, it is now necessary to excavate the coal seam under Lützerath. The energy company RWE, which owns the land under and around Lützerath, wants to use the coal to fire five power plant blocks that will remain on the grid longer than previously planned with a total output of 2100 megawatts.
Critics accused the green politicians of treason on Tuesday. “The Greens say goodbye to the climate movement,” said lignite opponent Laumanns, “they accept that our region will be devastated.” However, the government decision provides for RWE to prohibit the demolition of five villages in the north-west of the Garzweiler II opencast mine. The symbolic village of Lützerath could only have been preserved as a kind of peninsula in the middle of the opencast mine. In addition, three old farms, on which 25 people currently live, would have been threatened with demolition.
“Ms. Neubaur has arrived in reality”
In the region between Aachen and Cologne, many Green party members have been active in the anti-lignite movement for years. Antje Grothus, now a Green member of the state parliament, led the protests to save the Hambach Forest four years ago. “Today is not an easy day for me as a climate activist,” said Grothus Süddeutsche Zeitung. She is happy about the earlier phase-out of coal and the end of the forced resettlement of citizens, but the joy is now “overshadowed”: “People of all people who have made this success possible through their commitment should now go to the place that is so important for them and the climate give up.” Spokespersons for the Green Youth also condemned Tuesday’s decision as “wrong” and announced further protests against coal mining.
The North Rhine-Westphalian FDP, which had ruled the state with the CDU until early summer, gave poisoned praise to the state minister, Neubaur. The Greens have switched to the “energy supply strategy of the previous government”, said parliamentary group leader Henning Höne: “Ms. Neubaur has arrived in reality.”