With the what is the coal Commission, because that is Clumsy or not at all satisfied. The compromise, the environmentalists, scientists and politicians, trade unions and associations of the night concluded, was “awful and pretty weak”, writes the oldest forest squatters in the hambach forest, the old forest between Aachen and Cologne on the escarpment of the brown coal mine.

“I didn’t something wrong.” The Commission had pushed Germany’s phasing out of coal-fired power generation “as far back as possible,” says the 30-Year-old. “In light of the climate catastrophe we can’t wait until 2038.”

Until the year 2038 to go all the coal-fired power plants in Germany by the network. This compromise to the coal Commission the government proposes, because in the coalmines significantly more CO2 emissions than in gas-fired power plants, or, of course, in the case of renewable energies.

“it was possible to reach a consensus, and that is a great Good,” says Armin Laschet, the proposal. The CDU politician is Westphalia Minister-President of North Rhine -, the country where most of the coal-fired power plants. In no other state are so many people in the mining and coal-fired power plants work.

“Serious consequences

For the dispute over the coal’s exit is no other place as an example of how the hambach forest. Only in the year 2016, the then red-green government of North Rhine decided-Westphalia, energy company RWE is allowed to rip out the last 200 acres of the old forest, the brown coal to reduce including.

Clumsy, the not announced his true identity, lives since 2012, in a tree house on an old oak in Hambach to protest exactly against that. A sentence in the final report of the coal Commission is preparing him now: “The Commission considers that it is desirable that the hambach forest remains intact.” But what do you mean exactly desirable? “For me, still not sure if the forest remains”, says the tree tamper.

image route – clearance operations in the hambach forest

it is now Expected that the affected energy companies will negotiate about possible compensation, because the state wants to intervene in your property. “The Commission’s proposals have serious implications for brown coal business of RWE,” says CEO Rolf Martin Schmitz. “We will analyze the concrete consequences for our company, carefully.”

The exit date 2038 you think is “much too early”, according to the group, and continues: “the desire of the Commission to receive the hambach forest, sees RWE critical.” When the group revised its lignite plans, North Rhine-give-Westphalia final approvals. Only then is the fate of the hambach forest would be sealed.

Move or not?

While environmentalists from Greenpeace are partially satisfied with the result – Greenpeace-chief Martin Kaiser called the hambach forest is already saved, the Anti-mining activists of the Alliance “terrain” disappointed “about the climate, it was not the coal Commission at all”, criticized a spokesperson Nike grind house. “20 more years of coal power 20 years coal-fired power are too much.”

The Commission had presented a “shutdown plan for the planet”. Because only with massive CO2 savings, the world community could prevent, that the average temperature could rise by more than 1.5 degrees, with all the negative consequences. The energy companies received “money for Nothing,” complains Mill. “What happens with the Hambi and the villages, is unclear.”

in fact, open-pit coal mine threatens the Brown to the fall not only of the rest of the hambach forest to the victims, also to be relocated between Aachen and Cologne, five other towns. The recommendations of the coal Commission have no impact on the current relocation, it shall notify RWE. This would be conducted “according to plan”.

Prime Minister Laschet stressed that the five villages were not mentioned in the final report. “The towns themselves are torn to the part,” says Laschet. While some of the inhabitants to their ancestral villages, the other to the agreed compensation, and a new property. It is very a lot of conversations before stands now, announces Laschet. (Editorial Tamedia)

Created: 26.01.2019, 19:23 PM