It's a sunny, mild day in January, and the birds are singing as if spring has already arrived. Wild boars are roaming through Hambach Forest — the ancient woodland that has now been protected from the ravages of coal mining by the German government. The decision was good news for environmental activists and nearby villagers.

"You get a lot of strength from this powerful climate protection movement. We managed to save 'Hambi' [Hambach Forest — Editor's note], and that's a major achievement for the people who occupied the forest," said Kathrin Henneberger, a spokesperson for the Ende Gelände protest group. "This will give us new strength, which we will need for the ongoing struggle against the climate crisis."

Read more: The Germans fighting wind farms close to their homes

A symbol for the climate movement

Hambach Forest, on the edge of one of Europe's largest open-pit coal mines, has become an important symbol for Europe's climate protection movement. The power plants linked to these massive mines, near the western city of Cologne, release more CO2 into the atmosphere than anywhere else in the European Union.

In 2012, climate activists began building treehouses in Hambach Forest to protest its imminent destruction to make way for the expansion of the nearby mines. Over the years, protests against coal plant operator RWE and the federal and state energy policies became increasingly vocal — and mainstream. The protests reached a high point in the fall of 2018, when tens of thousands of people occupied the forest to demonstrate against coal-powered electricity and called for Germany's compliance with the Paris climate goals.

The village of Manheim has already been emptied out to make way for more mining

Anger, disappointment in nearby villages

Britta Kox is a resident of the village of Berverath, just a few kilometers away from the edge of the Garzweiler open-pit mine. Many nearby villages have been forced to make way for the coal excavators over the last few years. The German government has decided that another six villages must still be razed before coal mining comes to an end in the area. Kox's family will have to move and leave her grandmother's house behind. The news has left her shaken, and disappointed with policymakers.

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"I'm stunned, and angry. It's a catastrophic for us villagers. The German government is ruining our climate, and [North Rhine-Westphalia] State Premier [Armin] Laschet wants to destroy our villages. But we live here, and we want to stay," Kox told DW.

"The legislation was negotiated with energy firms at the national level. We, the people who will be affected, were once again completely ignored."

An assessment by the German Institute for Economic Research, said Kox, "shows that the villages can remain, the local forest as well, and that there is already enough coal here in the open-pit mines to last for years, well after 2038." She's relying on the support of the Hambach Forest activists for the preservation of her village, and others nearby. "We will stay, and we will not be driven from our homes, not for love or money," said Kox.

Read more: What Germany can learn from the Netherlands

New opportunities for Hambach Forest

Other villages such as Manheim and Morschenich, both located on the fringes of the open-pit mine, have already been boarded up and in part demolished, although a handful of people still live there. With this week's decision on the future of coal, it's unlikely the area will ever see any coal mining — but RWE, which bought out the homeowners, has already made the area nearly uninhabitable, a "fatal" move, said Dirk Jansen of the environmental organization BUND. "It would be cynical to continue this work of destruction, only to end up building superfluous industrial areas here," he said.

But according to Jansen, there's still hope for Hambach Forest, even if only some 550 hectares (2.1 square miles) of the original 4,000 hectares has been spared. "Every square meter deserves to be preserved, because this is a type of forest which is under explicit protection from the EU," he said.

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After 150 years of destruction linked to coal mining, Jansen believes Hambach Forest could now become the starting point for a green redevelopment of the Rhine coal mining region. "Groundwater was pumped out to enable coal extraction, and tree roots are dry," he said. However, the soil still has a high capacity to store water, and so the forest has the potential to "store rainwater."

In future, said Jansen, the region would have to be less focused on economic development and more concerned with the preservation of nature and ecological valorization. There was potential for the development of renewable energies, as well as sustainable, ecological agriculture.

Read more: Germany: From leader to loser on climate protection?

In order for Germany to reach its Paris climate protection goals, BUND has said the coal phaseout would have to be completed by 2030, at the latest. But the organization believes jobs in the coal industry could still be preserved for a number of years, in a socially responsible way.

Germany's growing climate movement demanding action Striking for the future "Why study, if our future is being destroyed?" This sign features a sentiment shared by increasing numbers of German students, who have joined young people worldwide in using Friday school strikes to call for action on climate change. The movement was inspired by 16-year-old Swedish activist Greta Thunberg, who began her protests alone in front of the Swedish parliament in August 2018.

Germany's growing climate movement demanding action No time to wait With the 2015 Paris climate accord, nearly all of the world's countries committed to limiting global warming to well below 2 degrees Celsius, preferably 1.5 degrees (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit), by 2100. The hope is that this target will prevent the worst effects of climate disasters. Concerned by the dire predictions from climate scientists, more and more people have called for immediate action.

Germany's growing climate movement demanding action Youth pressure Despite urgent warnings, politicians have dragged their heels on important climate decisions. It's become clear that Germany will miss its targets for 2020. Climate protection was an important factor in the European elections in late May, with the Greens winning more than 20% of the vote in Germany alone, more than double previous results. Among 18-24-year-olds, 34% backed the party.

Germany's growing climate movement demanding action Coal struggle in Hambach Germany's climate movement is fighting on many fronts. In recent years, activists have fought to preserve Hambach Forest in the western state of North Rhine-Westphalia, building treehouses to prevent the old-growth forest from being felled to make way for the mining of lignite, or brown coal. Energy giant RWE has launched legal action, and police have cleared the camp several times.

Germany's growing climate movement demanding action Victory, for now In September 2018, a few days after the camp was removed again, a court ruling suspended the clearing of the forest until late 2020, after a lawsuit by environmental group BUND. RWE has argued that the forest has to be cut in order to ensure the coal necessary for Germany's electricity supply. Around 50,000 activists celebrated the victory.

Germany's growing climate movement demanding action Making headlines Protests organized by groups such as Ende Gelände have increasingly been making headlines. Thousands of young activists have come out to staged events, blocking railway tracks used to deliver coal to power plants near Cologne and occupying huge coal excavators, as seen here in the open-pit mine in the east German town of Welzow in 2016.

Germany's growing climate movement demanding action 20 more years? In January 2019, after seven months of negotiations, a coal commission set up by the federal government to work out Germany's plans to phase out coal power released its findings. It recommended that Germany should continue coal mining until 2038, at the latest —far too late for the country to meet the targets of the 2015 Paris climate accord.

Germany's growing climate movement demanding action No confidence in politics An increasing number of young people in Germany are demanding that the government find a way to meet the 1.5-degree target. The emerging Fridays for Future movement has been getting support from longtime environmentalists, teachers, academics and parents. They have called for all German coal-fired power plants to be shut down by 2030, and for renewable energy initiatives to be vastly expanded. Author: Gero Rueter



RWE losing out?

The energy giant has been critical of the government's decision to speed up the exit from coal, with Chief Executive Rolf Martin Schmitz saying it would have severe consequences for both employees and the company itself.

"We had permission to extract more than 2.1 billion tons of coal reserves," he said. "More than 1.1 billion tons of those reserves will now remain buried."

"RWE's power plants were built in the 1960s. They're therefore outdated and written off economically by now," said Oliver Krischer, parliamentary leader of the environmentalist Green party. Today, RWE earns around three times as much with renewables as it does with gas and coal power generation, he added.

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