Intense discussion about Germany's prolonged reliance on coal and whether combating climate change justifies breaching the law has been prompted by the fate of a small village.
This week, environmentalists and police were engaged in a standoff outside the hamlet of Luetzerath, west of Cologne, which is slated to be destroyed to make way for the expansion of a local lignite mine.
On Tuesday, protesters disobeyed a court order essentially ejecting them from the region. Some attempted to block the arrival of large machines by digging trenches, erecting barricades, and perching atop enormous tripods before police forcibly pulled them away.
"People are putting all of their effort, all of their lives into this struggle to keep the coal in the ground," said Dina Hamid, a spokesperson for the activist group Luetzerath Lives.
"If this coal is burned, we're actually going to take down our climate goals," she said. "So we're trying to, with our bodies, protect the climate goals."
Hours later, the topic came up again at a town hall meeting in nearby Erkelenz, when a local official charged that protestors were prepared to "spill human blood" to protect the now-demolished community.The district administration's leader, Stephan Pusch, declared that although he understood the demonstrators' motivations, it was now time to give up on Luetzerath. The final villager, who was compelled to sell to utility provider RWE, left the community in 2022.
"You've achieved your goal. Now clear the pitch," he said to jeers from the room.
Many argued that the village is more than just a compelling metaphor for the need to address global warming, and that this was the correct position.There may be roughly 110 million metric tonnes of coal beneath Luetzerath, according to studies. According to the government and RWE, the lack of Russian gas owing to the conflict in Ukraine has put a strain on Germany's energy security, necessitating the use of this coal.
It is countered by critics that burning so much coal would make it much harder for Germany and the rest of the world to adhere to the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement's goal of keeping global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit).
"Nobody wants to be out there in the cold right now, defending a forest or a village," said Maya Rollberg, a 26-year-old student who had traveled from southern Germany. "But I think that people have realized that they have to do that in order to (protect) future generations."
Dietmar Jung, a retired priest attending the meeting, said he was tired of hearing officials say the law was on the side of RWE.
"They keep going back to the legal situation," he said. "But the right to live doesn't play a role here (for them)."
Pusch, the regional administration chief, warned protesters that intentionally breaking the law wouldn't help their cause in a country where the violent seizure of power and the horrors of dictatorship are still within living memory.
"I'll tell you honestly that I'm scared my children will grow up in a world that isn't worth living in anymore," he said. "But I'm at least as scared of my children growing up in a country where everyone takes the law into their own hands."
"You won't save the world's climate on your own," said Pusch. "(We'll) only do so if we manage to take the majority of the population with us."
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