Activists gathered against the extension of a coal mine in Lützerath on November 12, 2022 in western Germany (AFP / INA FASSBENDER)
There was only one farmer left in Lützerath, a German village built on huge coal reserves. He returned the keys to his farm last month, leaving the premises to climate defenders, determined to resist the diggers.
In their wooden and tin shacks hanging from the trees, these activists say they are capable of holding out for several weeks if the police decide to evict them to allow the extension of the open-pit mine whose gaping pit extends at the foot of their camp.
When will what they call “Day X” occur? No one knows, but everyone is preparing for it when Germany needs coal to supply the power stations whose operation it has had to extend in order to compensate for the scarcity of Russian gas. And avoid the blackout this winter.
Symbol of the fight against fossil fuels, Lützerath, in western Germany, expects several thousand anti-coal demonstrators on Saturday who are also demanding more ambition from international leaders gathered at COP27 on the climate, in Egypt.
A giant yellow diagonal cross symbolizing “Day X” during a rally against the expansion of a coal mine in Lützerath on November 12, 2022 in western Germany (AFP/INA FASSBENDER)
“We don’t know when the evacuation should take place,” explains Alma, a Frenchwoman who speaks under her activist pseudonym.
“It is a question of responsibility, difficult to take by the authorities because the operation, monumental, will mobilize several thousand police officers over several weeks”, affirms the young woman of about thirty years.
– Betrayed –
After two master’s degrees at university, Alma decided to dedicate herself to full-time activism. She was one of the first to found the Lützerath camp two years ago, joined by around a hundred activists.
An activist holds a “Less” sign in front of an open pit coal mine on November 12, 2022 in Lützerath, western Germany (AFP/INA FASSBENDER)
Over the course of the expropriations, several dozen inhabitants, compensated and rehoused, left the now abandoned village.
Activists felt betrayed this fall when the government of Social Democrat Olaf Scholz, who governs with environmentalists, announced a compromise with the energy company RWE, operator of the mine.
Content of the agreement: five surrounding villages will escape the excavations but Lützerath will be sacrificed as planned.
Although RWE, for a long time one of Europe’s biggest CO2 emitters, has also announced that it wants to stop coal-fired electricity production by 2030 in the Rhine mining basin, advancing its plans by eight years, activists do not not take off.
The open pit coal mine in Lützerath on November 12, 2022 in western Germany (AFP/INA FASSBENDER)
“If RWE mines the tons of coal under Lützerath, Germany will necessarily violate the Paris agreement because of the carbon emissions from the mine. The village is therefore not just a symbol, it is a critical point in the fight against global warming”, explains Alma.
On the other side of the road, closed by RWE, the mine opens at the edge of a precipice. On its gold and black sand dunes, excavators dig deeper.
The coal in the neighboring soils will be “necessary from 2024” to supply the power stations, while the other mines in the region are closing, assures the operator.
Activists gathered against the extension of a coal mine in Lützerath on November 12, 2022 in western Germany (AFP / INA FASSBENDER)
But according to the German Institute for Economic Research, RWE could still draw 100 million tonnes of lignite from the existing site “while preserving Lützerath”, says a report published in June 2021, before the Russian invasion of Ukraine. which has led to an energy crisis in Europe.
The continued operation of several power plants does not call into question the German government’s objective of completely phasing out coal by 2030.
– Cable network –
To avoid being dislodged by the police, the occupants of Lüzerath perched their dwellings six meters high, in the trees, circulating from one to the other by a network of cables.
They claim to be able to live there independently for several weeks.
Wooden huts perched in the trees built by environmental activists opposed to the extension of a coal mine in Lützerath, on October 5, 2022 in western Germany (AFP/Archives/INA FASSBENDER)
In the center of the camp, about twenty activists are trying to deploy a mast by pulling a rope connected to a giant tree trunk by a system of pulleys.
“The masts are completely connected to trees and houses in such a way that it is impossible to cut the ropes without endangering someone’s life”, says Alma, who, like all the others, had to learn to climb the rope to reach the heights.
“The whole strategy of the occupation lies in putting us in danger,” warns an anonymous activist.
© 2022 AFP
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