Lignite fund wrong way to deal with coal’s financial legacy – commentary

A state-managed fund for dealing with the financial legacy of lignite mining in Germany is the wrong way to ensure that the extraction’s long-term effects are dealt with properly, Antje Höning writes in a commentary for the General Anzeiger Bonn. Contrary to the existing nuclear fund, which the state uses to deal with the so-called “eternal costs” of safely storing nuclear waste, a similar fund called for by the Green Party for lignite mine renaturation is unnecessary, she writes. “The energy companies are responsible for the restoration of their mines – so the state has to leave them the money to do it,” Höning says. Germany’s energy companies are financially healthy enough to accomplish this task, “and whoever calls for a lignite fund intends to bring about an immediate coal exit. Germany’s coal exit commission must not allow this to happen,” she writes.

See CLEW’s Commission watch and the factsheet Germany’s coal exit commission for background.