German mine protests: using more coal and tackling the climate crisis?

In Germany, it takes a village to reveal the government’s green dilemma.

The village of Lutzerath, to be exact – where several hundred protestors are trying to stop it being destroyed, and becoming part of a giant open cast coal mine.

The village – in the north west of Germany near the Dutch border lies just a few hundred yards from a major mine supplying brown coal for its power plants.

Activists say that extracting more coal threatens Germany’s current net zero commitment.

But the government in Berlin –  including the Green Party – says they’ve had to turn to fossil fuels in the short term – because of the energy crisis linked to Russia’s war in Ukraine.