Germany had been winding down its brown coal production. Then an energy crisis hit. Now, thousands of people have promised to resist January plans to demolish a village and dig up the coal beneath it.
“If this village goes, then Germany’s 1.5-degrees commitment to the Paris Agreement goes, as well.”
It’s an October afternoon in a rural corner of western Germany, the village of Lützerath in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW). The morning rain clouds have moved out, and the sun is glistening off the damp grass and leaves in the small meadow where we’re walking.
