At a demonstration on Tuesday against the expansion of a coal mine in western Germany, police briefly detained Greta Thunberg, a Swedish climate activist. The climate debate in Germany has reached a boiling point over this issue.
Over the past week, protests at Lützerath, a small village that will be destroyed to make way for the nearby Garzweiler coal mine, have grown massive and contentious. On Saturday, there were protests involving 15,000 people.
Thunberg, now 20, is one of the most well-known climate protesters in the world after making a speech at the 2018 United Nations Climate Change Conference.
Joining the protests in Lützerath, Germany, was a goal for Thunberg's trip this week. According to dpa, the German news agency, she was among a group of protesters who were taken into custody by police on Tuesday after they approached the mine's edge. Reuters reports that she was released soon after.
Climate-related disasters during week 230. We're in Lützerath, a German town that might be wiped off the map because of plans to expand a coal mine. For a long time, people have been fighting back. Tomorrow at 12 or at a protest near you, help us demand that #LützerathBleibt. #ClimateStrike pic.twitter.com/hGrCK6ZQew
North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany is home to three enormous open-pit coal mines, one of which is the Garzweiler mine. Coal mined in Germany is a lignite variety, and it's responsible for about 20% of the country's carbon emissions.
Three mines have been growing for decades. About half of the region's fifty villages, some of which were centuries old, have been razed to the ground in order to make way for mining operations.
About ten years ago, a court approved the destruction of Lützerath, which is located about 20 kilometers (12 miles) from Germany's western border.
RWE, the mining company, claims that all one hundred residents of the hamlet were relocated beginning in 2017. Protesters have been squatting in the abandoned structures ever since.
Last week, a judge issued an order allowing the squatters to be removed and the settlement to be demolished. Clashes between police and protesters have escalated as the demonstrations have grown larger and more heated in recent days.
Expansion of the mine, according to climate activists, will increase emissions of greenhouse gases, which could cause Germany to fall short of its Paris Agreement commitments.
Over the past two years, energy has emerged as one of Germany's most divisive political issues. While the country's economy has long relied on fossil fuels, a pledge was made in 2019 to drastically reduce GHG emissions by 2030. Then in 2021, the country's highest court ordered the government to take even more drastic measures to reduce emissions, which accelerated the timeline even further.
Russia's invasion of Ukraine in early 2022 caused natural gas supplies to Europe to be cut off, prompting Germany to once again rely on coal for electricity generation. This winter, at least 20 coal-fired power plants across the country were brought back online or had their shutdown dates pushed back in an effort to keep the lights on. Germany failed to meet its climate goals in 2022 and is expected to do so again in 2023, according to government officials.
RWE and the German government announced in October that they had reached an agreement for RWE to end its coal operations earlier than expected in exchange for the demolition of Lützerath.
As part of the agreement, RWE agreed to shut down its coal mines in 2030, eight years earlier than planned. Five additional settlements and three farms could be saved under the proposed plan.
Until then, however, RWE stated that the destruction of Lützerath, which is located very close to the mine's current edge, was "needed to make optimal use" of coal.
All of this has enraged climate activists, who have been blocking major streets and the runways at airports in Munich and Berlin almost daily for the past few months.
RWE said in a statement last week, "The company regrets that the planned demolition process can only take place under substantial police protection and that opponents of the opencast mine are calling for illegal disruptions and also criminal acts."
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