Symbolic charge: How the town of Lützerath became the 1.5 degree limit

Startbahn West, Brokdorf, Gorleben, the Hambach Forest, Lützerath: These are all locations on the map and symbols of protest in equal measure.

Symbolic charge: How the town of Lützerath became the 1.5 degree limit

Startbahn West, Brokdorf, Gorleben, the Hambach Forest, Lützerath: These are all locations on the map and symbols of protest in equal measure. But what charges a place with so much meaning that even international media are drawn there? This can be understood in Lützerath.

The geographer Daniel Mullis has researched places where conflicts become concrete. Places where local, regional and global situations intertwine. This was the case, for example, during the European debt crisis, when Frankfurt am Main or Syntagma Square in front of the Greek Parliament in Athens became the scene of mass protests. "It turns out that these places are not chosen at random, but always have a specific meaning for the protest," says Mullis ntv.de.

In the case of Lützerath, he observes that the site where the energy company RWE wants to mine lignite has been occupied by protesters for years. But that went under the radar of the general public for a long time. Only last summer, after Corona and the Ukraine war had dominated the debates for a long time, did the climate crisis come back into political focus. According to Mullis, this development is not primarily related to the decisions about Lützerath, but to the experience of the drought summer and the increased mobilization and protests of the climate movement such as Fridays for Future or the Last Generation.

Although the residents of the town, about an hour's drive northwest of Cologne, have been resettled since 2005, there were still people who hadn't moved. They were joined by climate activists. They called their group "Lützerath is alive" and used the remaining infrastructure of the place. They lived in the empty houses, built tree houses and set up a climate camp.

This means that Lützerath has become a place to live again, says Mullis. This is how one can understand the emergence of the nickname "Lützi". "Many places where people live are given nicknames and thus a certain warm association." However, this does not always happen and is also not an indicator of the importance of a protest. Nevertheless, protests based on a social structure worked differently than, for example, a large demonstration. "People brushed their teeth, cooked and organized their everyday lives together." Thus, the place was associated with a "blueprint for a different life".

The final end for Lützerath came in 2022 as part of a larger compromise. Federal Economics Minister Robert Habeck and NRW Economics Minister Mona Neubaur negotiated it with RWE in early October 2022. In it, RWE commits to phasing out coal in 2030 and not in 2038 as previously planned. As a result, according to the information, 280 million tons of lignite are not mined, the mining of which was already approved. Other villages remain, but Lützerath is still being excavated. The Bundestag approved this compromise in early December. RWE then decided to evacuate Lützerath. This changed something fundamental in the perception of the place.

Due to the looming evacuation, a temporal urgency arose. The climate activists from Lützerath also emphasized that the 1.5 degree limit of global warming runs and is being defended in front of the small hamlet. In the Paris Climate Agreement of 2015, which Germany also ratified, the international community agreed to limit global warming to a maximum of 1.5 degrees. "Of course, the border doesn't really run through Lützerath," says Mullis about the protest slogan.

Nevertheless, the argument has factual support and that is precisely why it works for the mobilization. "If the coal is mined under Lützerath, then Germany threatens to tear its climate goals." As a result, the place has become symbolically charged up to global importance in the fight against global warming. "That would not work everywhere," says the expert. In the case of the place, whose history dates back to the 12th century, the David versus Goliath idea was added. People who give climate protection a very high priority meet a large corporation and political decision-makers.

You can't plan something like that or design it on the drawing board, says Mullis. "It also happens spontaneously up to a certain point." If the connection is easy to understand for many, the protest then becomes massively visible. "That's not always the case." But that is exactly what happened in Lützerath. As the final clearing of the place became more and more concrete, more and more people came to support the protest there. The escalation of a social conflict became obvious. "The climate movement set this scenario very confidently and wisely," says Mullis.

This is where other actors came into play. New protesters joined the climate activists who had been living in the area for some time, and RWE received police support to enforce the legal right to use the coal. Prominent supporters such as Luisa Neubauer and Greta Thunberg traveled to support the climate movement. "This also shows the importance of the location for the movement, here they were able to make their concern for climate justice visible and audible in a concrete conflict," explains Mullis. "In the course of an escalation, many people have the feeling, yes, exactly, that's where we have to go." This is certainly also an attempt to connect what is common on site and to join forces with others.

In an open letter to the state government of North Rhine-Westphalia, scientists from Scientists for Future advocated a moratorium on evictions. Their justification: Lützerath has become a symbol of the credibility of German climate policy. Journalists also got their own picture on site or took up key questions of the protest, for example the question of whether the preservation of Lützerath is essential to comply with the 1.5 degree target. This, in turn, brought accusations from the media that they had paid too much attention to the topic.

Mullis disagrees. "In a world shaped by digital, social media, the linear press no longer has much control over how much attention a topic gets," he says. Rather, it was not so easy not to report about it. In Lützerath, the confrontation was very tangible. Against the resistance of hundreds of climate activists, the site was cleared in a day-long police operation. The last two remaining squatters, chained in a hole in the ground, finally gave up. RWE's bucket-wheel excavators could reach the former village as early as March or April.

The next symbolic location in the climate protest against the mining of lignite is not yet clear. But the area of ​​social conflict remains. After the end of Lützerath, the German Federation for the Environment and Nature Conservation BUND addressed brown coal mining in the eastern German states. The label "last village to fall victim to opencast mining" now hovers over Mühlrose in the Görlitz district.