Trees Fall, But Who’s Listening?

Germany’s coal addiction and the destruction of the Hambach Forest

After 25 years as an environmental lawyer, I finally had the opportunity to attend the annual United Nations climate negotiations in Bonn, Germany earlier this month. My most lasting impressions came not at the conference, but in and near the Hambach Forest 50 miles away.

Negotiations at the U.N. climate conference in Bonn, Germany

The world committed to reducing emissions of heat-trapping greenhouse gases at the 2015 conference in Paris, but many details remain to be addressed. This year there were important discussions on quantifying emissions, compensating nations suffering from climate change and other aspects of creating a “rulebook” for future climate action.

But lurking behind these negotiations was ominous news: Greenhouse gas emissions, which have been level for the past three years, are again on the rise. The leaders visiting the conference, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel, reaffirmed their commitments to reverse this troubling trend. But actions speak louder than words.

Germany is a perfect example of this dichotomy. The country holds itself out as a leader in the fight against climate change. It managed to obtain 35 percent of its energy from renewables in the first half of 2017. The Upper House recently called for a full phase-in to electric vehicles by 2030. And Germany proudly hosted this year’s conference.

But as I learned on our trip to the nearby Hambach Forest, Germany continues to extract and burn enormous quantities of coal, fueling the climate crisis rather than fighting it.

Hambach Forest in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany

We began our visit in what little remains of the 12,000 year old forest.

There we learned that Germany has allowed 90 percent of what was more than 21 square miles of ancient forest, and all its inhabitants — including imperiled species such as the Bechstein’s bat, the medium spotted woodpecker and the dormouse — to be destroyed for the sake of retrieving and burning the most polluting lignite coal imaginable. We also learned that even the small portion of the forest that remains and nearby villages are soon slated for destruction.

A community of activists lives in tree houses in the Hambach Forest

We learned all this from a group of incredible activists who for years has been struggling to stop the coal production and save the Hambach Forest. They live in several small villages of forest tree houses, where they serve as human obstacles to the mining and expose Germany’s rank hypocrisy.

While Germany proclaims its dedication to greenhouse gas reductions, it is engaged in coal mining on a massive scale — and decimating a historical forest — all to fuel its coal addiction.

An activist’s tree house with a sign reading “you want us gone, we’ll be RIGHT HERE”

We were moved by their struggle and completely understood that destroying the Hambach Forest to produce more coal makes no sense at all.

We also thought we had a sense of what must be involved, from cutting down the trees to digging to retrieve the coal. We wondered why they couldn’t dig around the villages and leave them intact. We asked about restoration, and the possibility that the trees might regrow once the mining is over.

To say we misunderstood what this mining involves would be a serious understatement. After our inspiring visit to the forest, we went to see the actual mine. There we saw the largest open pit coal mine in all of Europe, a vast wasteland straight out of a dystopian science fiction movie:

The Tagebau Hambach, an open-pit coal mine in Germany

The entire landscape had been dug as much as 1,500 feet deep, for as far as the eye could see. It was unfathomable to think that what had once been an ancient forest — and people’s homes — had been transformed into . . . this. And there was certainly no way in which this would remain anything but a useless wasteland once all the coal has been removed in the coming decades.

But it was even worse than that. As we looked to the horizon in every direction we saw smoke billowing up to the clouds. Our guides taught us that these were the six coal-fired power plants where much of the coal dug here was being burned.

A flyer handed out at the U.N. climate conference in Bonn, Germany

These plants are worsening Germany’s coal addiction and spewing noxious pollution and massive greenhouse gas emissions. They were perhaps even providing some of the electricity being used to heat the temporary tents erected for the U.N. conference not far away. We rode back to Bonn in stunned silence, unable to digest what we had seen.

There was a lot of talk back at the conference about technology, from wind and solar to electric cars, and the financing necessary to get these technologies deployed around the world.

But if we continue to dig and burn our fossil fuels even while we deploy renewables, we will not solve the climate crisis. To lead, Germany must quickly reduce the amount of coal it mines and burns. It could start by saving what little is left of the Hambach Forest.

Howard Crystal is a senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity’s Climate Law Institute.