Greta Thunberg Protests German Coal Mine Expansion

• Greta Thunberg joins protest of 6,000 against a German lignite mine expansion.
• The expansion is part of an agreement to clear a village and exit from coal.
• Thunberg criticizes the agreement and Germany’s pollution.

According to a police estimate, over 6,000 protestors, including climate campaigner Greta Thunberg, marched through mud and rain on Saturday to the German village of Luetzerath to voice their opposition to the expansion of an opencast lignite mine.

RWE and the government reached an agreement to clear the village in the western North Rhine-Westphalia state, allowing the energy giant to destroy Lutzerath in exchange for speeding up its exit from coal and rescuing five towns that were initially earmarked for destruction.

After marching with a cardboard banner reading in German, “Luetzi stays,” Thunberg used a podium to remark, “This is a betrayal of present and future generations… Germany is one of the worst polluters in the world and needs to be held accountable.”

Police in riot gear met the demonstrators as they got close to the settlement; some of them used batons to force them away.

Regional police acknowledged using force to prevent individuals from piercing barriers and approaching the danger zone at the border of the excavation site on Twitter.

Police removed protesters from buildings they had held for nearly two years earlier this week in an effort to halt the adjacent mine’s expansion.

Few people were still camped out in treehouses and an underground tunnel on Saturday, but thousands showed up to protest the mine, which opponents claim represents Berlin’s failed climate policy.

The president of North Rhine-Westphalia said on Saturday that although energy politics “was not always pleasant,” coal was more important than ever given the energy crisis that is affecting Europe’s largest economy.

Friday, Economy Minister Robert Habeck told Spiegel that protesting against Lutzerath was the “wrong sign.”

It is the ultimate location where brown coal will be extracted; rather than representing more of the same, it represents the last frontier.

However, campaigners have argued that Germany should stop mining lignite altogether and instead concentrate on boosting renewable energy.

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