RWE would be wise to abandon logging plans for coal mine expansion - opinion

Forest protection has played an important role in the history of Germany’s Energiewende, or energy transition, and the current developments at the Hambach Forest, which is under threat by the expansion of a lignite mine, could end up as another example in which environmental activists prevail over the commercial interests of a corporation, Michael Bauchmüller writes in a commentary in the Süddeutsche Zeitung. Protecting trees from profit-oriented investors has worked for anti-nuclear activists “not only because of the strength of their arguments but also because they had the power of images on their side”, Bauchmüller says. Energy company RWE insists that it is legally entitled to cut down the embattled forest in order to make room for its coal mine, while at the same time the country’s coal commission is debating the end of coal-fired power production in Germany. “If the RWE board takes a close look at what happened in the past, they will abandon their logging plans. They can only lose,” according to Bauchmüller.

Read the commentary in German here.

See the CLEW article Logging row continues to weigh on coal commission’s work for background and CLEW’S Commission watch for constant updates on the body’s work.