60 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-ownedoperator 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. 7SPREMBERG
Germany’s “coal exit” is pricey,
complex and controversialGermanyDirty, and not
quick
LeipzigCottbus
SprembergPot sdamHamburgCologneFrankfurtMunichBremenStuttgartBerlinSource: Clean Energy WireFormerboundary
betweenEast&
WestGermanyPO
LA
NDNETHERLANDSCZECH
REP.AUSTRIAFRANCELausitzGERMANY100 kmLignitemines
Lignite depositsnally 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