It hasn’t been this turbulent at a Green party conference for a long time: NRW’s coal compromise is splitting the party because large parts do not want to accept the town of Lützerath being razed. The party leadership only narrowly escapes a severe defeat, but the wounds are deep.
The coal compromise for the Rhine region negotiated by Federal Environment Minister Robert Habeck, among others, gave the Greens a heated debate about the demolition of the town of Lützerath at the end of their federal party conference. With a narrow majority of 21 votes, the 638 voting delegates rejected an amendment by the Green Youth calling for a moratorium on the demolition of Lützrath. On the last day of its three-day federal delegates’ conference in Bonn, the party experienced a deep rift in the question of how unconditionally it stood by the positions of the climate protection movement. The process should keep the Greens busy for a long time.
Habeck and North Rhine-Westphalia’s Green Economics Minister Mona Neubaur announced an agreement with RWE at the beginning of February, according to which coal-fired power generation in the Rhine region will end in 2030, eight years earlier than initially planned. However, the settlement of Lützerath is to be demolished in order to mine the lignite underneath. The Green Youth and many other party delegates wanted to prevent that.
In the open voting by hand of cards on the amendment, the picture was so brief that a written vote was scheduled. The debate had previously been so long that many of the more than 800 delegates had to start their journey home before the vote. But even they will not have missed the sharp criticism leveled by the well-known climate activist Luisa Neubauer, who is herself a member of the Greens, giving the advocates of a moratorium a noticeable boost.
In her speech, Neubauer accused the Greens of “ecological hyperrealism”. In the struggle for majorities and social approval, the party keeps making compromises at the expense of the climate. Above all, the Fridays for Future activist sharply attacked the coal compromise and the demolition of Lützerath. “The big picture is manifested in Lützerath,” said Neubauer. “This village is sitting on millions of tons of CO2.” It is clear: “If RWE uses the utilization of all power plants made possible in the deal in the 20s, then not a single ton of CO2 will be saved by the early coal phase-out in 2030.”
According to the “Lützi” activists, the coal compromise is not a success at all, because under the agreement RWE is allowed to operate two power plant units longer until 2030. “The amount of coal will remain the same as it will be until 2038, it’s just burned faster,” said Fridays for Future. The climate movement also considers the saving of 280 million tons of lignite, with which Habeck and Neubaur argued, to be the product of a well-calculated, hastily compiled report by RWE. “Since when do the Greens argue with falsified figures from RWE?” Neubauer was outraged. She appealed to the party: “It’s up to you in the coalition to draw the ecological boundaries and defend them as if everything were at stake – because that’s what it’s all about.” Neubauer received thunderous applause for her speech.
With the moratorium application, the climate activist and Greens member of the Bundestag Kathrin Henneberger wanted to achieve, among other things, that the need for coal-fired power generation is regularly checked before 2030 in order to implement an even earlier phase-out if necessary. “The current phase-out plan by 2030 means: 280 million tons of lignite will be burned and we won’t achieve our climate goals with that,” said Henneberger. Timon Dzienus, spokesman for the Green Youth, said: “As long as there are doubts about these reports (…), a moratorium for Lützerath is needed.” This decision is so far-reaching that “we damn well owe it to the climate movement”.
NRW Economics Minister Neubau defended the political agreement reached. Lützerath is “clearly, legally judged owned by RWE” – so it cannot be saved. The Greens couldn’t take advantage of the early exit and reject what they didn’t like. North Rhine-Westphalia’s Minister for the Environment, Oliver Krischer, listed the names of the places that are still inhabited and which, thanks to the coal compromise, have gained certainty that they will not be flattened. “If we say ‘moratorium!’, then there will be no exit from coal in 2030,” said Krischer. “Then these villages will be excavated.” Then Neubaur would have to go to these places and tell the residents that the Greens had refused to consent to their rescue.
The party leadership also enthusiastically supported the coal compromise. “A moratorium means no security for the people in the Rhineland. That means no security for the coal phase-out in 2030,” said Chairwoman Ricarda Lang. Federal Agriculture Minister Cem Özdemir said of the coal compromise: “It is a huge success. It would not have happened with Peter Altmaier as Federal Minister of Economics.” To Luisa Neubauer he said: “We don’t have to constantly apologize for what we do.”
In front of the congress center in Bonn, activists from the environmental and climate protection movement demonstrated all weekend against extended lifetimes for nuclear power and against the demolition of Lützerath. The relationship with these upstream organizations, which is so formative for the green identity, is subjected to a stress test by the coal compromise.
Philipp Noack from the Green Youth asked: “Are we driving a wedge between ourselves and the climate movement?” The base Green Sophie Marie Patt said: “If we dredge up Lützerath, we will disappoint one of our biggest allies that we have in climate policy.” Both argued that the Greens’ electoral successes in recent years were not least due to the climate movement. “It also worries me that we will lose solidarity with the climate movement,” said party youth spokesman Dzienus.
Even the scheduling of the debate for early Sunday afternoon had caused unrest among Lützerath sympathizers. They had feared that the debate would collide with many delegates’ travel home plans. However, not only opponents of the moratorium, but also the Lützerath defenders, rejected a proposal from the Presidium to shorten the speaking times to streamline the debate. Those who liked could also see this as a protest against a party executive that, as at the last federal delegate conferences, negotiated away as many motions and amendments as possible and thus avoided panel debates.
After the Greens had agreed to Habeck’s nuclear deployment reserve on Friday and a compromise on arms exports on Saturday, the party executive almost suffered a defeat on Sunday. At the end of the more than three-hour debate, the party leadership should also ask itself: Are there signs that the patience of the base with the many compromises of being in government is coming to an end? In any case, Lang wants to restore relations with the climate activists and travel to Lützerath himself. It is likely to be one of her most difficult appointments in less than a year as party leader.
