Can Germany finally turn its back on brown coal? It will have to in order to reach its CO2 reduction pledges. But lignite is a reliable source of cheap energy and provides lots of jobs in economically fragile regions.
November 22, 2017
When Lars Zimmer walks through his village, he hardly recognizes the place any more. The bakery, the pub, the street signs, they're all gone. The only things left are the streets, vast empty lots and. in the center, the Immerath Cathedral, which recently saw the cross dismounted from its steeple.
"I find it hard to imagine where the houses once stood," the 45-year-old says. "The reference points are missing."
There's nothing much left of Immerath, the place where Zimmer grew up. The village, which lies between the cities of Aachen and Düsseldorf, was once home to 1,500 residents, but only around 20 remain. Zimmer is holding on until the excavators arrive and energy giant RWE swallows up the village into the Garzweiler II lignite mine. "It's my way of protesting," he says.
For years, gigantic bucket-wheel excavators have been moving northwards toward Mönchengladback, the city located not far from Germany's border with the Netherlands. They are following the coal seams that lie just below the surface -- and destroy the forests, fields, farm houses and villages that lie in their path. Obstructions are simply torn down and rebuilt elsewhere while people are resettled.
Zimmer has become the public face of his home town's resettlement. He's been interviewed by foreign reporters and filmed walking through the ghost town. Then in May, he treceived an important visitor from Berlin.
Green party co-leader Katrin Göring-Eckardt was looking for a suitable backdrop to criticize lignite mining. Even more journalists came along with her to hear her say things like: "It is depressing to watch a place that has been slated for resettlement slowly empty out." Then she sat with Zimmer under the apple trees in his garden as he spoke about the "huge catastrophe" that was approaching step by step.
A Political Issue
But Zimmer has regained a "glimmer of hope," he now says. After all, brown coal is back in the news. Earlier this month, 25,000 delegates from 170 countries attended the COP23 conference in Bonn to discuss the Paris climate agreement. As part of that accord, Germany committed to reducing its greenhouse gas emissions by 40 percent by 2030, relative to the 1990 levels. That would mean a death sentence for the massive excavators.
And coal has also been an issue in Berlin. Göring-Eckart's Green Party had made sure to insert it into the negotiations aimed at assembling Germany's next governing coalition -- talks that collapsed dramatically on Sunday night.
But the issue isn't just a matter for the Greens. Whoever forms the next government will have to deal with the country's lignite problem - and not just from an ecological perspective, but also from an energy point of view.
