Death of a forest
In North-Rhine Westphalia, a battle for the soul of Germany in one image: the no-man’s land between one of Europe’s largest mines and the remnant of the ancient forest of Hambach.
The forest has been here since the last ice age, but the expanding lignite (brown coal) mine carries with it the forest’s death warrant.
The mine is the jewel in the crown of power company RWE (Rheinisch-Westfälisches Elektrizitätswerk). Named Etzweiler, it is an 85 sq km scar with lignite down to a depth of almost half a kilometre.
Growling leviathans stalk the plains of Etzweiler: the world’s largest land vehicles. Giant excavators the length of two football pitches can dig up 240,000 tonnes of lignite a day, which is loaded onto the 115km of conveyor belt that crisscross this human created desert. When burnt at one of the nearby power plants, the lignite from Etzweiler spews out 325 thousand tonnes of CO2 daily.
Within the forest is a mini-metropolis of tree houses; the outpost of Hambi is residence to a sizeable population of environmental activists who frustrate the speedy logging of the forest.
Before the UK joined the European Community it was named “the dirty man of Europe” for its polluted beaches and farmland. Germany has now wrested control of that title.
Of the EU’s top ten greenhouse gas emitters, seven are in Germany.
Within 20km of Etzweiler are three power plants with total emissions of 75 million tonnes of CO2 (Weisweiler 18.75m, Neurath 31.32m, Neideraussem 24.83m) — equivalent to the total emissions of Bangladesh, a country of 160 million people. Together, these three plants are estimated to cause 227 premature deaths every year.
Cheap alternative electricity sources now abound, but even as Germany’s neighbours phase-out coal, the lobbying power of RWE delays German action on climate change. Chancellor Merkel has announced Germany will miss its 2020 targets.
Today RWE holds its AGM in Essen, not far from Hambach — this is a chance for the company to finally signal an embrace of renewable energy, leave the forest in peace, and allow Germany to quit coal.
