After the Lützerath evacuation
Anti-coal protests continue
After the evacuation of the former German lignite village of Lützerath, coal opponents continued their protests on Tuesday morning in several places in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia with short-term actions.
Published: 13 minutes ago
A climate activist hangs upside down from a bridge. Photo: Roberto Pfeil/dpa
A bucket-wheel excavator was manned in the Inden open-cast lignite mine and had to stop working as a result. The Aachen police spoke of around 20 activists, a spokesman for the energy company RWE of 30 to 40. In the vicinity of Rommerskirchen, a group of around 20 activists also occupied industrial railway tracks to the Neurath power plant. There were initially no riots at any location.
In Lützerath, west of Cologne, there had been violent protests over the weekend against the planned excavation in favor of opencast lignite mining. The last squatters left the site on Monday. The actual inhabitants of the hamlet were resettled years ago.
Germany is still dependent on climate-damaging coal for power generation. Last year, a good 20 percent of the electricity generated came from domestic lignite and a good 11 percent from imported hard coal. After the shutdown of three nuclear power plants at the end of 2021, the proportion of coal even increased compared to the previous year. The coal phase-out was originally decided by 2038. It is to be brought forward to 2030 for North Rhine-Westphalia.
(SDA)