Without full attention on quick coal exit, Merkel’s legacy will be “dirty brown”

Though Germany has championed the use of clean energy, the country is struggling with the phase-out of lignite, one of its most important energy sources to date, writes Michelle Hackman in an article in the Wall Street Journal. It is an energy source controversial both because of the greenhouse gases it emits when burned, and because “it is mined in vast, open pits that devour landscapes and villages,” writes Hackman.
In a separate article in the New York Times, Greenpeace International director Jennifer Morgan tells Melissa Eddy that unless chancellor Angela Merkel turns her full attention to reducing emissions in Germany, particularly from coal, with clear support for a phase-out of coal by 2030, her legacy will not be green. “It will be dirty brown.”

Find the WSJ article (behind paywall) in English here, and the NYTimes article in English here.

For background, read the CLEW factsheet Germany’s coal exit commission and CLEW’s Commission watch – Managing Germany’s coal phase-out.