Activists announce large demo against eviction in Lützerath

Environmental organizations are calling for a large-scale demonstration in Lützerath on January 14th. The protest is directed against the threat of eviction and excavation of the village for lignite mining, as the NRW state association of the Federal Government for the Environment and Nature Conservation Germany (BUND) announced on Thursday in Düsseldorf. Campact, Fridays For Future, Greenpeace, the Climate Alliance Germany, the nature conservation youth Naju NRW and the initiatives "All Villages Stay" and "Lützerath Live!" are also involved in the demo alliance.

"The coal under Lützerath must remain in the ground," says the demonstration call. Lignite is one of the most climate-damaging energy sources in the world and the Rhenish lignite mining area is the largest source of CO2 in Europe. With the planned production of a further 280 million tons of lignite by the energy company RWE in the Garzweiler opencast mine alone, Germany would miss its contribution to complying with the 1.5 degree limit from the Paris climate agreement, criticize the climate protectors.

Federal Economics Minister Robert Habeck and North Rhine-Westphalian Economics Minister Mona Neubauer (both Green) reached an agreement with RWE at the beginning of October to bring forward the phase-out of coal from 2038 to 2030. Five villages in the Rhenish area threatened by resettlement are now to be preserved. Lützerath, which has been occupied by climate activists for two years, is to give way to opencast lignite mining.

At the beginning of this week, the Heinsberg District Administrator Stephan Pusch (CDU) issued a general decree prohibiting the stay in the hamlet and thus formally paving the way for an eviction from January 10th. The BUND announced that more than 11,000 people had already publicly declared that they wanted to oppose the eviction.