The Economist UK - 21.09.2019

44 Europe The EconomistSeptember 21st 2019

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hey camein hi-vis jackets and anoraks,

beating drums and blowing whistles as

the rain pelted down, defiantly defending

their dying industry. Perhaps a thousand

miners and other workers turned out at the

Schwarze Pumpe coal-fired power plant in

eastern Germany on September 9th, pre-

senting a boisterous welcome to visitors at

a conference on the future of the local Lau-

sitz region. In a clever stunt, they forced

those attending to enter through one of

two makeshift arches marked “2030” and

“2038”, signifying two possible end-dates

for the use of coal in Germany. Anyone tak-

ing the first was roundly booed.

Next year Germany will miss its emis-

sion-reduction targets. Continued depen-

dence on coal is one of the main reasons for

this. The share in the electricity mix of

brown coal (lignite), the cheapest and dirti-

est sort, has remained stable for two de-

cades. No country burns more of it than

Germany. Last year the government assem-

bled a commission spanning politicians,

industry, scientists, activists and unions to

get itself off the stuff.

This approach was designed to ensure

common ownership of whatever proposals

emerged. The commission’s 275-page re-

port, issued in January, commits Germany

to end the use of coal no later than 2038,

and pledges subsidies worth up to €40bn

($44bn) over 20 years for Germany’s re-

maining coal-mining areas. Regular re-

views will determine when mines must

close, and owners will be compensated.

The compromise, not yet implemented

in law, left everyone a little dissatisfied.

Utilities murmur about supply insecurity;

business lobbies fear rising energy prices.

The biggest howls come from environmen-

talists, who want the closure advanced to

help meet Germany’s target of cutting

emissions by 55% on 1990 levels by 2030.

A trip across the Lausitz, where a third

of Germany’s lignite is mined, helps ex-

plain why coal-workers find this hard to

swallow. This remote rural region, strad-

dling the eastern states of Saxony and Bran-

denburg, once provided East Germany with

90% of its electricity (today it supplies

around 7% of Germany’s power). The other-

wise featureless landscape is pocked by the

vast opencast mines from which lignite is

stripped, and the lakes formed when dis-

used ones are flooded. Fans of fcEnergie,

based in Cottbus, serenade their players

with hymns to coal. But this sentimental

attachment to coal, notes Johannes

Staemmler at the Institute for Advanced

Sustainability Studies in Potsdam, goes

along with fear of change born from the

ravages of deindustrialisation after Ger-

man reunification in 1990, when most of

the Lausitz’s mines were shut down and

tens of thousands lost their jobs.

Today there are no big employers in the

Lausitz other than leag, the Czech-owned

operator of the region’s mines and coal

plants. leag’s three Lausitz plants, includ-

ing Schwarze Pumpe, all sit among the top

ten carbon emitters in the eu, but they also

provide 8,000 well-paid jobs in a region

not groaning with them, and thousands

more indirectly. Such arguments helped

local politicians secure €17bn of the prom-

ised €40bn. Plans to spend the cash have

mushroomed, covering transport and mo-

bile infrastructure, investment in r&dand

the creation of government jobs. Christine

Herntier, the mayor of Spremberg and a

member of the coal commission, has her

heart set on a state-of-the-art hydrogen

plant at Schwarze Pumpe. Yet she too is los-

ing faith, worried that federal funds will be

spread too thinly, irritated that poor com-

munities like hers must provide co-financ-

ing, and infuriated by turncoat greens.

When foreign competition devastated

Germany’s solar industry a few years ago,

notes Felix Ekardt, head of the Research

Unit Sustainability and Climate Policy in

Leipzig, politicians simply shrugged and

pointed to market forces. But private deci-

sions are resented less than political ones.

“People don’t forgive the state if it removes

jobs,” says Jörg Steinbach, Brandenburg’s

energy minister. Two of the three remain-

ing lignite regions are in the former East

Germany, where old grievances have found

new political expression. In recent state

elections the populist Alternative for Ger-

many (afd) swept the board in Lausitz after

campaigning against the planned closures.

Mr Steinbach remains optimistic.

“There will be losers,” he says, “but not

many.” Two-thirds of lignite workers are al-

ready over 45, which will limit forced re-

dundancies, and the skills younger ones

pick up are often transferable. Yet indepen-

dent forecasts have shown how exposed

the local economy remains to closures. In

the Lausitz there are few other employ-

ment opportunities, as there are in the lig-

nite area in the Rhineland. “Well-trained

people will see their future elsewhere,”

sighs Wolfgang Rupieper, head of Pro Lau-

sitzer Braunkohle, a pro-coal association in

Cottbus. Like others, he grumbles about

the efforts expected of coal when emis-

sions from other sectors, like transport,

have barely shifted since 1990.

Such concerns animated a broad pack-

age of climate-protection measures the

government was due to unveil on Septem-

ber 20th. Chief among these was expected

to be some form of carbon price, needed to

ensure that the end of coal does in fact re-

duce overall emissions. The costly and

complex commission approach fits awk-

wardly with more efficient emission-re-

duction strategies. Yet as other countries

attempt to walk the line between protect-

ing the climate and sheltering left-behind

economies, they will be watching the Ger-

man experiment closely. 7

SPREMBERG

Germany’s “coal exit” is pricey,

complex and controversial

Germany

Dirty, and not

quick

Leipzig

Cottbus

Spremberg

Pot sdam

Hamburg

Cologne

Frankfurt

Munich

Bremen

Stuttgart

Berlin

Source: Clean Energy Wire

Formerboundary

betweenEast&

WestGermany

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LA

ND

NE

TH

ER

LA

ND

S

CZECH

REP.

AUSTRIA

FRANCE

Lausitz

GERMANY

100 km

Lignitemines

Lignite deposits

nally built to house 100 warplanes.

In the 1970s the base employed 3,000

people, says its commander, Major Arqile

Olldashi. Now the number is 110. That, plus

the demise of communist-era industries,

means that Kucova’s population has plum-

meted from 20,000 to about 12,000. Still

faintly visible is the first runway, laid by an

Italian oil company in 1939. Locals hope

that the restoration of the base will mean

work for them. In its heyday an average of

25 flights roared in and out every day.

In 1999 natoflew drones from the base

during the Kosovo war. Even though it is a

majority Muslim country, Albanians are fe-

rociously pro-American, in particular be-

cause of American support for the Koso-

vars against the Serbs at that time.nato

officials downplay reports that they are

worried about what the Russians might be

up to in the western Balkans. But the hard

cash they are plainly investing in Kucova

implies otherwise.

Albania’s military beef is being restored

in other ways. A radar station partly funded

by the Pentagon is being built in the moun-

tains; from next year, it will plug black

spots in nato’s Balkan surveillance capa-

bility. This, says Olta Xhacka, Albania’s

minister of defence, will make her country

nato’s “eye in the region”. 7