Anti-coal protesters in Hambach Forest “modern heroes”

RWE’s coal mining in the old Hambach Forest in western German state North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) “is unparalleled in its stupidity”, Ingo Arzt writes in a commentary for the left-wing Tageszeitung (taz). It is well known that the lignite mined in the region “is a climate mess that needs to stop as soon as possible”, Arzt writes. He describes environmentalists who have been occupying the forest for years as “heroes”. Arzt says this was not about simple “friend or foe thinking” but recognising that the protesters put their lives on the line “for the right cause”. With the Energiewende, Germany has been making “green PR around the world” but it now risks missing its 2020 climate protection targets, making the objective of the protesters in the Hambach Forest “the goals of our country and by virtue of the Paris Agreement also the goals of the global community”.

Read the article in German here.

See the CLEW factsheet Coal in Germany for background.