Riot police have started removing environmental protestors from a western German community that will be razed to make way for the development of a coal mine. On Wednesday, as police approached the tiny hamlet of Luetzerath, which has become a flashpoint in debate about the country’s climate initiatives, some stones and fireworks were hurled. Andreas Mueller, a spokesperson for the police, called the attacks on policemen “not good,” but he also stated that the vast majority of the protests up to this point have been nonviolent.
According to him, the police would continue to try to head off an escalation by allowing any protestors who leave on their own will to do so without fear of more police measures or punishment. Petra Mueller, a 53-year-old resident who had been at the site for many days, said, “I’m terribly worried today,” as she looked out the upper window of one of the few intact houses. Mueller added, “till nothing is left standing; hope dies last,” indicating that she still had faith that some of Luetzerath might be saved. Greenpeace warns that if the town were destroyed in order to develop the neighboring Garzweiler coal mine, it would have a devastating effect on the local ecosystem and release massive amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Coal is necessary for Germany’s energy security, according to the government and utility provider RWE. However, the government’s position is questioned by a research conducted by the German Institute for Economic Research. The report’s authors discovered that other existing coal resources might be utilized, although at a higher cost to RWE. The analysis indicated that Germany could decrease its reliance on Russian energy by increasing its generation of renewable electricity and decreasing its demand through energy efficiency measures. The Green Party, which includes members of the regional and national administrations that made the deal with RWE last year permitting it to destroy the hamlet in exchange for ceasing coal use by 2030, rather than 2038, has been the target of special wrath from campaigners.
“I think climate protection and demonstrations require symbols, but the desolate hamlet of Luetzerath, where no one lives any more, is the wrong emblem from my point of view,” Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck, a Green who is Germany’s economics and climate minister, told reporters in Berlin. Environmentalists argue that Germany’s worldwide promises to decrease emissions of planet-warming greenhouse gases are at odds with the expansion of a major open-cast coal mine. The government is set to fail its lofty objectives for the second year in a row.
