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Germany: Climate activists end coal blockade in Garzweiler

  • June 23, 2019

Police have cleared 250 climate activists who stayed overnight at the Garzweiler brown coal mine in western Germany, officials said Sunday.

However, some protesters were still blocking nearby train tracks that usually serve as a coal transport route from one of Germany’s biggest open-pit mines, near the cities of Düsseldorf and Cologne.

Spokeswoman Kathrin Henneberger confirmed the protesters had now left the mine.

“In the morning, there was a brief escalation with the police. Officers encircled a group, although all participants intended to clear the area around 10 a.m. as agreed and announced,” Henneberger told Germany’s dpa news agency.

Read more: Role of the business sector in tackling the climate crisis

Activists stormed the mine

Around 1,000 activists from the Ende Gelände (End of the Line) group marched to the huge mine on Saturday, before breaking through a police line and storming the pit.

Wearing white overalls, the protesters could be seen on videos published online, hooting and clapping as police ordered them to stay put.

Protesters and police accused each other of combative behavior in the mine, causing injuries. Police said eight officers were hurt in scuffles with protesters.

Police deployed pepper spray and eventually pulled some protesters from the site, citing safety concerns.

Read more: Climate change a threat to tourism in Spain

Weekend of rallies

Although the Ende Gelände protest grabbed most of the headlines, it was a small part of a much larger rally on Saturday from the town of Keyenberg along the edge of the mine.

Ariel shot of protesters and police at the Garweiler mine (Getty Images/S. Schuermann)

Ende Gelände describes itself as a civil disobedience protest movement to limit global warming

The 8,000-strong protest included students from the Fridays for Future rallies against climate change, a youth movement started last year by 16-year-old Swede Greta Thunberg.

That, too, was dwarfed by the estimated 40,000 attendees from across Europe that came to the nearby city of Aachen on Friday to campaign for more action on climate change.

Garzweiler and the nearby mine at Hambach have been the focus of many protests in recent years because of plans to cut down an old-growth forest to enlarge both mines.

Read more: As Germany phases out coal, villages still forced to make way for mining

  • A student in Cologne with a sign that reads Why study, if our future is being destroyed?

    Germany’s growing climate movement demanding action

    Striking for the future

    “Why study, if our future is being destroyed?” This sign features a sentiment shared by increasing numbers of German students, who have joined young people worldwide in using Friday school strikes to call for action on climate change. The movement was inspired by 16-year-old Swedish activist Greta Thunberg, who began her protests alone in front of the Swedish parliament in August 2018.

  • Demonstrators in Cologne

    Germany’s growing climate movement demanding action

    No time to wait

    With the 2015 Paris climate accord, nearly all of the world’s countries committed to limiting global warming to well below 2 degrees Celsius, preferably 1.5 degrees (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit), by 2100. The hope is that this target will prevent the worst effects of climate disasters. Concerned by the dire predictions from climate scientists, more and more people have called for immediate action.

  • Children with climate protest signs in Cologne

    Germany’s growing climate movement demanding action

    Youth pressure

    Despite urgent warnings, politicians have dragged their heels on important climate decisions. It’s become clear that Germany will miss its targets for 2020. Climate protection was an important factor in the European elections in late May, with the Greens winning more than 20% of the vote in Germany alone, more than double previous results. Among 18-24-year-olds, 34% backed the party.

  • Activists confront police in Hambach Forest (picture-alliance/dpa/O. Berg)

    Germany’s growing climate movement demanding action

    Coal struggle in Hambach

    Germany’s climate movement is fighting on many fronts. In recent years, activists have fought to preserve Hambach Forest in the western state of North Rhine-Westphalia, building treehouses to prevent the old-growth forest from being felled to make way for the mining of lignite, or brown coal. Energy giant RWE has launched legal action, and police have cleared the camp several times.

  • Protesters with signs at the Hambach Forest

    Germany’s growing climate movement demanding action

    Victory, for now

    In September 2018, a few days after the camp was removed again, a court ruling suspended the clearing of the forest until late 2020, after a lawsuit by environmental group BUND. RWE has argued that the forest has to be cut in order to ensure the coal necessary for Germany’s electricity supply. Around 50,000 activists celebrated the victory.

  • Activists in the brown coal mine Welzow

    Germany’s growing climate movement demanding action

    Making headlines

    Protests organized by groups such as Ende Gelände have increasingly been making headlines. Thousands of young activists have come out to staged events, blocking railway tracks used to deliver coal to power plants near Cologne and occupying huge coal excavators, as seen here in the open-pit mine in the east German town of Welzow in 2016.

  • Aerial view of Neurath fired-coal power station showing large amount of fumes and pollution, Cologne

    Germany’s growing climate movement demanding action

    20 more years?

    In January 2019, after seven months of negotiations, a coal commission set up by the federal government to work out Germany’s plans to phase out coal power released its findings. It recommended that Germany should continue coal mining until 2038, at the latest —far too late for the country to meet the targets of the 2015 Paris climate accord.

  • Youths show their hands bearing the inscriptions Our future in your hands during the Fridays For Future movement in Berlin

    Germany’s growing climate movement demanding action

    No confidence in politics

    An increasing number of young people in Germany are demanding that the government find a way to meet the 1.5-degree target. The emerging Fridays for Future movement has been getting support from longtime environmentalists, teachers, academics and parents. They have called for all German coal-fired power plants to be shut down by 2030, and for renewable energy initiatives to be vastly expanded.

    Author: Gero Rueter


Months of climate protests by students, and a sharp rise in the polls for Germany’s Green party, has prompted Chancellor Angela Merkel to throw her weight behind the goal of making Germany climate neutral by 2050.

That would mean Europe’s largest economy would no longer add greenhouse gases to the atmosphere.

However, European Union leaders failed this week to agree on how to make the whole bloc carbon neutral by 2050.

mm/cmk (AP, dpa)

Each evening at 1830 UTC, DW’s editors send out a selection of the day’s hard news and quality feature journalism. You can sign up to receive it directly here.

Article source: https://www.dw.com/en/germany-climate-activists-end-coal-blockade-in-garzweiler/a-49321479?maca=en-rss-en-all-1573-rdf

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