The tiny village of Lützerath in western Germany was, for most of its history, unremarkable. It contains about a dozen homes and its population rarely climbed to more than one hundred. But today, Lützerath has become the epicenter of Germany’s environmentalist and eco-activist movement.
Lützerath sits at the edge of an open-pit coal mine owned by German multinational energy company RWE. For years now, RWE has been itching to mine the lignite (a soft brown coal that is very dirty and considered the most polluting variety) underneath the village. The company has bought up buildings and land and made deals with the government and residents for resettlement.
Since 2019, activists have built up resistance networks. They’ve made camps, occupied buildings, and constructed barriers against any demolition.
The situation escalated in early January, when police began preparations for the eviction of the residents of Lützerath (or Lützi, a nickname that activists have given it). Thousands of activists descended on the village to make their demands clear: “Lützi bleibt!” or “Lützi remains!”
“As a civil society in Germany, we have to stand against this injustice,” said one protester in Lützerath, who goes by the name of Frank to maintain anonymity. “It’s not okay that Germany emits more and more when other people in the world are suffering because of this.”
In early January, Frank traveled from Hamburg to Lützerath to join thousands of other activists and protesters from across Germany—and indeed from across Europe (climate activist Greta Thunberg was arrested there for a second time at a protest in January).
In Lützerath, Frank attended near-daily demonstrations, including a demonstration on January 14, which brought about 35,000 people to the village, resulting in a confrontation with the police. At night, Frank returned to the nearby activist camp where he slept in a tent. The camp operates like its own village—free food disbursements, campfires, meetings, musical events, and even phycologists and medical personnel.
“It feels like David and Goliath in a way,” Frank says of the situation in Lützerath. “I’m just a small person, but we need many small people to make a mass movement. The change will not come from the top.”
Activists and protestors have good reason for concern. Coal is one of the dirtiest fossil fuels. Because coal has to be burned to produce energy, it emits more carbon than other fossil fuels. The world needs to keep global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius or less in order to avoid environmental catastrophe—and the immediate phase-out of coal is an integral part of that.
Despite its reputation among Europe’s greenest countries, Germany is still one of the largest producers and consumers of coal in Europe—and its coal companies are some of the continent’s dirtiest. But the country has a plan to change that.
In 2020, after years of tough negotiation, the government passed a law to steer Germany’s Kohleausstieg—its coal exit. It plans to end coal-fired power production by 2038 and chart a shutdown and compensation schedule for lignite power plants and their operators.
Architects of the coal exit celebrated the agreement as “historic,” but activists pointed out—and scientists confirm—that a 2038 deadline isn’t soon enough to meet the demands of the Paris Agreement, which aims to hold warming at the 1.5 degree limit. Nevertheless, the agreement kickstarted the process for phasing out the use of coal. It was, despite its limitations, a movement in a greener direction. Then the war in Ukraine began.
“It’s not okay that Germany emits more and more when other people in the world are suffering because of this.”
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and Germany’s subsequent halt of Russian oil imports sparked understandable panic of a potential energy crisis. Before the war, Germany imported more than half of its gas from Russia. After the invasion, the greatest task of Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s coalition was to find a way to power Germany without Russian gas. Their solution? Reopen some of the nation’s coal-fired plants, push off closing some of its nuclear plants, and increase liquified natural gas imports from producer countries like Norway and Qatar.
Last week, German Finance Minister Christian Lindner proudly declared that Germany had achieved its goal of independence from Russian energy. But for people concerned about climate change and the future of the planet, this isn’t the victory it might appear to be. Germany has managed to stabilize the energy situation for now, but everything the government had negotiated and planned for the energy transition seems at risk.
One persistent explanation for Lützerath’s demolition points to the war in Ukraine and the energy crisis. In a statement, RWE called the demolition of Lützerath as “required due to [the] energy crisis.”
This sentiment is echoed across the government. In a briefing over the summer, German Economy Minister Robert Habeck, of Die Grünen, Germany’s Green Party, called the reactivation of some coal plants a “necessary step.” Under previous agreements with RWE, the government also greenlighted the demolition of Lützerath, but elected officials celebrated the new agreement’s more limiting scope.
Indeed, in an ironic twist, some of the government’s leading advocates and brokers for the Lützerath agreement come from the Green Party. “It’s one of the greatest advances we’ve made in recent years,” NRW Environmental Minister and Green Party politician Oliver Krischer said of the plan. Habeck, who himself helped facilitate the deal, has defended it as the “right decision” and a “good decision for climate protection.”
The logic is as follows: let the company mine more coal now so it stops mining sooner altogether. With the deal, RWE agreed to advance its coal exit by eight years to 2030. But Lützerath, and the coal underneath it, remain on the chopping block.
RWE claims that, for it to extract enough lignite for a secure supply until 2030, Lützerath has to go. It’s worth it, RWE contends, because according to their calculations, the accelerated exit will “approximately halve” the volume of lignite extracted at the mine. Not everyone is so sure.
A number of studies have cast doubt on whether the demolition of Lützerath is necessary to meet the coal production demand or just an easier way for RWE to cut costs. Presumably, RWE calculates that production will be halved because the exit timeline was halved. However, nothing in the deal stipulates how much coal the company is allowed to extract in total.
Defenders of the deal argue that, in a democratic system with competing interests, unsavory agreements sometimes must be made. But is the Lützerath deal a form of green realpolitik or is it just a bad deal?
One easy way for a private company to extract more profits more quickly is to market themselves as a societal necessity—the more urgent, the better. An unexpected war and impending energy crisis are strong arguments for a private company in the coal-burning business.
It’s an argument that has been made by coal companies across the world since the outbreak of the war, including in the, comparatively, much more energy-secure United States. And like the Greens in Germany, the Democratic Party had to swallow concessions to the fossil fuel industry in order to pass the Inflation Reduction Act.
Lamin Chukwugozie is a spokesperson for Lützerath Lebt, a group that has been organizing resistance around Lützerath for the past few years. Lamin finds many of the agreements made by governments and fossil fuel companies are invalid.
“They’re bullshit,” Chukwugozie said. "People are realizing that political leaders and companies won't save us. ... More and more people are starting to realize that the climate crisis is not far away, it’s happening right now." He points to recent devastating floods in Pakistan, Nigeria, and even Germany as signs of the crisis.
He notes that Lützerath Lebt’s solution to the crisis is decidedly anti-capitalist and rejects deals with fossil fuel companies. The eviction by the police of the residents of Lützerath was completed on January 16, but Chukwugozie said the activists aren’t going anywhere. Lützerath has been evicted, he says, but “the coal is still in the ground.”