“The science is clear: we have to keep carbon underground,” Greta Thunberg said on Friday. The Swedish environmental activist travels to Lützerath, near Aachen, Germany. She came to denounce the expulsion of activists settled in this abandoned town to prevent the expansion of a nearby coal mine.
To deal with the energy crisis, particularly in the context of the war in Ukraine, the German government concluded an agreement last October with the German energy company RWE: in exchange for the closure of its coal-fired power plants by 2030 instead of from 2038, the company is authorized to extend its operation to Lützerath.
“Germany is making a fool of itself,” said Greta Thunberg.
“Police brutality”
For more than two years, several hundred protesters have occupied Lützerath. A recent court ruling authorized his deportation, which began this week. According to Reuters, Greta Thunberg denounced “police violence” during the police intervention.
For his part, a spokesman for the Aachen police welcomed “the fact that a large number of activists have decided to leave the area peacefully and without resistance,” reports CBSNews.
The town’s 2,000 inhabitants left after being expropriated by the mine operators. Since then, the premises have been occupied by climate activists from all over Germany who denounce ecological heresy and the failure of Berlin’s climate policy.
“The People Rise”
Greta Thunberg has announced that she will join a protest scheduled for Saturday to show “what the power of the people looks like, what democracy looks like, only when the government and corporations do this, destroying the environment, people become Raise”.
The neighboring mine, controlled by RWE, is an open pit 200 meters deep and the size of the city of Lyon. In order to exploit the lignite (coal) reserves below Lützerath, the company began to erect a fence of approximately one kilometer around the town. Therefore, he plans to demolish the houses and streets there once it is clear of protesters.
Source: BFM TV
