A broad alliance of environmental organisations is writing an open letter to the environment ministers of the states of Brandenburg, Saxony and Saxony-Anhalt to demand concrete measures to end coal subsidies that are harmful to the environment and the climate.

Coal companies are evading their legal obligation to be financially liable for the environmental damage they cause.

LEAG and MIBRAG are responsible for the extraction of 470 million cubic metres of groundwater per year, and the resulting sulphate and iron discharges are poisoning surface waters - the costs of which have so far been largely borne by the public purse.
The climate crisis requires an exit from coal as quickly as possible and thus an early closure of the opencast lignite mines. However, this does not mean that the coal companies should be paid with public funds to fulfil their legal obligations to restore the opencast mines.

The ongoing energy crisis has brought exorbitant profit margins to the companies operating coal-fired power plants, and the federal government is holding out the prospect of additional sources of revenue by reactivating lignite-fired power plants. Under the Coal Phase-out Act, they are to receive a further €4.35 billion in public funds as "compensation" (of which LEAG accounted for €1.75 billion), should the European Commission classify them as compatible with EU state aid law in a procedure currently underway.

Planned acceleration law undermines legal protection against major projects

Berlin, 06.09.2022: In a statement submitted today, the environmental network GRÜNE LIGA strongly opposes the draft for another acceleration law. The Ministry of Justice plans to avoid the suspensive effect of lawsuits by allowing courts to disregard legal errors in the decisions complained of.
"The law planned by the Federal Ministry of Justice aims at facilitating the creation of facts even in the case of unlawful approvals. In practice, lawsuits against fossil-fuel power plants, waste incineration plants, airports, roads and even lignite mining would be nullified from the outset, even though the law claims to serve the conversion to sustainable energy supplies. This kind of planning acceleration would undermine the rule of law as a whole," says René Schuster, Federal Chairman of the GREEN LIGA.

Coal company wants to justify expropriation with business secrets Sorbian-Welsh cultural project shows solidarity on site

Representatives of Fridays for Future from Berlin, Brandenburg and Saxony demand that no more land be expropriated for opencast lignite mines. They met in the forest leased by the GRÜNEN LIGA at the Nochten open-cast mine, where they planted a young lime tree.

"Opencast coal mines like Nochten have an impact over the entire course of the Spree. Our generation will bear the consequences if the coal phase-out is delayed. As climate activists from Berlin, Brandenburg and Saxony, we therefore jointly demand that the mining areas be reduced and that no opencast mining consequences be passed on to the general public," says Tom Beeger from Fridays for Future in Görlitz.

Cooling water consumption hampers drinking water production

Cottbus, 24.06.2022. The environmental network GRÜNE LIGA warns of an aggravation of the water shortage in the Spree River due to the German government's planned re-commissioning of the Jänschwalde E and F power plant units. Drinking water supplies for two million people may also be affected. If at all, these units should therefore only be used secondarily to other power plants.

"If units E and F are heavily utilised, the Spree will lose another 13 million cubic metres of water per year through the cooling towers. Since the blocks were last in operation, the water shortage in the Spree region has massively worsened due to the drought years. A renewed increase in cooling water consumption can therefore be at the expense of drinking water production for Berlin and Frankfurt (Oder)," warns René Schuster, lignite expert of the GRÜNE LIGA.

30 YEARS AFTER THE FIRST VILLAGE OCCUPATION AGAINST COAL EXCAVATORS

Lacoma was something special: a village that resisted its resettlement under the conditions of the GDR, later probably the first occupation of a village against lignite mining in Germany, then a temporary art and cultural free space and finally the occasion for the largest tree occupation in Germany at that time. A struggle that was still lost under the conditions of 2007, but laid the foundations for later successful lignite resistance.

At the invitation of the Cottbus' Grüne Liga group, many actors of the Lacoma resistance met on 11 June 2022 at what remains of the original site on the outskirts of Cottbus. In a photo action at the beginning, former Lacoma residents held a large-scale village view in front of the open pit mine, which is being flooded as the planned "Cottbus Baltic Sea". Lacoma was located at the edge of the open-cast mine - only a small part of the village is still recognisable, the largest part has disappeared in the open-cast mine. It was not easy for many to return to such a place. But in the end, the joy of seeing their companions again outweighed them - it was written all over their faces during the celebration.