Green country leader wants faster coal phase-out

Created: 2022-10-04Updated: 2022-10-04 4:01 PM

The Brandenburg Greens state chairwoman Julia Schmidt speaks at a state party conference.

© Bernd Settnik/dpa/archive image

After the agreement in North Rhine-Westphalia, the Brandenburg Greens state chairwoman Julia Schmidt is pushing for a faster phase-out of lignite in Lusatia as well.

"What is possible in NRW must also be possible in Brandenburg," Schmidt wrote on Twitter on Tuesday.

"We mustn't become a rest ramp for climate-damaging coal." The SPD and CDU shouldn't screw up the expansion of renewable energies by clinging to fossil fuels.

Potsdam - In the Brandenburg coalition agreement, the SPD, CDU and Greens had stipulated in 2019 that they would phase out lignite-fired power generation by 2038 at the latest, as agreed when phasing out coal.

A possible early end date is 2035. "The coalition is committed to the orderly continuation of the Jänschwalde opencast mine in accordance with the lignite plan - taking environmental requirements into account," says the coalition agreement.

The phase-out of lignite in the Rhenish mining area is to be brought forward to 2030, eight years earlier than planned.

This was agreed by the ministries of economics in the federal government and in NRW and RWE.

At the same time, in view of the energy crisis, two power plant blocks that were to be shut down at the end of the year are to continue running until spring 2024.

The planned mining of lignite under the Lützerath settlement met with great criticism from environmental groups.

dpa