Precis

While Australia ponders opening new coal fields, Germany has declared the industry must end.

The country's last black coal mines were closed in 2018 and now the government has decided to phase out all brown coal mines and coal-fired power plants.

Under what's called the Coal Compromise, the government, mining and energy companies and unions have all agreed to phase out the coal industry by 2038 in return for a $60 billion injection of government funds.

But the Coal Compromise is fragile. Environmentalists are demanding coal's immediate end, which they say is necessary if Germany is to honour its commitments under the Paris Agreement.

"We don't have any time to waste. We can't wait another 18 years," says Daniel Hofinger, who is part of a newly formed anti-coal movement putting pressure on the government to act faster.

Reporter Eric Campbell visits the coal region of Lusatia in the former East Germany on the eve of a mass protest action which aims to bring coal production to a standstill.

Here, coal-dependent communities are fighting to keep the deal they've negotiated and are steeling themselves for the green invasion.

"The [Coal] Compromise we've negotiated offers hope to Lusatia," says the mayor of a coal town, addressing her community the night before the protests.

Campbell joins the thousands of activists as they travel en masse to the coal region, out-manoeuvring police batons and pepper spray to shut down brown coal mines.

Coal smokestacks

Music

00:00

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter: Germany is letting go of coal. Europe’s biggest economy has closed its black coal mines without sacking a single worker. Now it´s phasing out the brown coal it burns for electricity.

00:10

Campbell driving

But climate activists say it´s still not enough. We find out why a country built on coal believes coal’s days are numbered. 

00:27

Aerial. Protest on coal field

And we join a raid with young activists fighting to stop coal now.

00:42

Aerial over Essen coal plant. Super: Ruhr Valley, Germany

00:58

Title: The Coal War

01:02

Eric donning mine gear. Super: Eric Campbell

01:06

Eric and Uwe enter coal mine

I’m in Germany’s industrial heartland, a region of factories, smokestacks and shafts.

01:10

ERIC: "So this is just for visitors now?"'

UWE: "Just for the visitors."

01:18

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter: And like thousands of men before me, I’m going down a coal mine. 

01:22

Music

01:27

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter: This is stepping into the bowels of modern German history.

UWE: 1875, the shafts were built. And in the Second World War they built the first tunnels.

01:31

Archival. B&W German coal mining/armaments

01:47

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter: Coal from the Ruhr Valley, near the Dutch border, helped build the steel that armed the Third Reich. When Germany lost the war and was split into a capitalist West and a Soviet-run East, this coal helped remake West Germany into an economic powerhouse.

01:50

Smokestack aerial.

Music

02:17

Uwe shows drilling technique

UWE SEEGER:  My grandpa did it like this… Put it in the coal, and we used it like this to destroy big stones.

02:22

Eric and Uwe walk through mine

And this is just a short trip to the next tunnel.

02:41

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter: Uwe Seeger was born into this world, and thought he’d die in it.

UWE SEEGER: "My grandfather was a miner, my father was a miner, my son was a miner for six years, but that’s at an end because we don’t have coal mines in Germany anymore."

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter: "You don’t have black coal mines anymore."

UWE SEEGER:  "Yes."

02:50

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter: "How do you feel about that?"

UWE SEEGER:  "Very terrible. I'm traurig."

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter: "Very sad."

UWE SEEGER:  "Yes, very sad."

03:10

Eric and Uwe onto trolley and down tunnel

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter: This is no longer a working mine. Uwe and some fellow ex-miners run it as a tourist attraction to show visitors how life used to be.

UWE SEEGER:  "So, sit down. Let's have a drive."

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter: "It's not what I expected."

03:20

Music

03:41

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter: In 2018, Germany closed its last black coal mines. And a Ruhr tradition dating back centuries shuddered to a sudden end.

03:45

GVs RAG headquarters

Music

03:59

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter: This is the corporate headquarters of the Ruhr coal giant RAG. Its main job now is rehabilitating the closed mines.

04:07

Christof shows coal nugget

The foyer proudly displays one of the last black nuggets ever mined. Christof Beike is the company´s last spokesman.

04:16

"In coal terms, this is like a piece of the Berlin Wall. "

04:25

CHRISTOF BEIKE:  Yes, it’s part of the Berlin Wall for us, the last coal. And we take care of this part. And nobody’s allowed to take a piece of it. It’s like a baby.

04:29

Aerial. RAG headquarters exterior

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter: Germany’s transition from coal started in 2007,

04:43

Campbell to camera at RAG

when the coal corporations sat down with unions and politicians and agreed to close down all the black coal mines by 2018. The deal was that no workers would be sacked. They’d all be given early retirement or found jobs in other industries. It was an heroic goal. And back then, it had nothing to do with climate change. It was all about money.

04:51

Coal mines

By the 1970s, it was cheaper to import coal than to dig it up from the Ruhr’s deep underground mines. The industry was surviving on government subsidies.

CHRISTOF BEIKE:  Politicians decided in 2007 to pay not any longer subsidies for the coal production.

05:16

Beike interview. Super:
Christof Beike
RAG

And we decided to close, with a politician, this company. And they ask us how much time you need to do that without any problems.

05:39

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter: So you closed the black coal industry without firing any workers?

05:51

CHRISTOF BEIKE:  Yes. For this, you need, I think, some time and money. But we have had both.

05:55

Setting sun over coal plant

Choir [singing]: "Oh let us worship the Lord…

06:05

Miners' choir

Oh let us worship the Lord. Worship!"

06:15

Choir conductor: "One more time please."

06:27

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter: Many of those workers still get together in the Ruhr Coal Choir, but their days underground are over. Older miners were given early retirement. Younger ones were helped to find new jobs. In this choir that ranges from a research scientist to a budding trade union delegate. Christian, who’s 31, is looking forward to his new life representing workers.

CHRISTIAN: When I started in 2009

06:31

Christian interview

I already knew I wasn’t retiring as a coal miner. So I looked around and made other plans.

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter:  So there is a life after mining?

CHRISTIAN:  Absolutely, yes.

07:05

Sunset/Coal train

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter: But elsewhere in the country, mining continues because Germany is still Europe’s biggest producer of brown coal.

07:18

Eric driving/Smokestacks

I´m driving from the Ruhr Valley to the old East Germany. The region of Lusatia, on the Polish border, has huge reserves of this low-grade, high-polluting fuel. Brown coal is a big employer here and they need the jobs. After Communism collapsed in 1989, and Germany reunited, towns like Spremberg did it tough, as the mayor Christine Herntier explains. 

CHRISTINE HERNTIER:  Coal has done us a lot of good.

07:34

Herntier interview

It’s been mined industrially, converted into electricity and given Lusatia some prosperity.

08:11

Brown coal plant

After reunification the other industries, like glass and textiles, were just annihilated.

08:25

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter: Brown coal is profitable because it isn’t deep underground. It’s dug up near the surface, taken to nearby power plants, and burned to boil water to make electricity. But it’s even dirtier than black coal. The problem isn’t the steam you see pouring out of cooling towers, it’s the carbon emissions you can’t see.

08:38

Berlin GV

In the cosmopolitan capital Berlin, environmentalists have been demanding politicians shut it down.

09:036

German flag flying

DANIEL HOFINGER:  We need to end fossil fuels right now. We

09:15

Hofinger interview

don’t have any time to waste any more. We can’t wait another 18 years, so we're taking direction action to call for the immediate phase out of coal in Germany.

09:19

Aerials. Ende Gelände protest

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter: Daniel Hofinger is an activist with a new kind of protest movement called Ende Gelände, meaning Game Over.

DANIEL HOFINGER: Ende Gelände is a mass action of civil disobedience against coal and climate injustice in Germany.

09:27

Hofinger interview

And what we're doing right now is to prepare ourselves for this action.

09:44

Ende Gelände protest at coalfield

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter: It doesn’t march in the streets. It uses military style tactics to occupy coal areas, fielding thousands of disciplined activists in strategic formations to evade police and shut infrastructure down. The movement has put intense pressure on a government already struggling to cut emissions since the Paris Climate Change Agreement of 2015.

09-52

Campbell to camera

Germany can’t hope to meet its Paris targets unless it closes all this. So a commission representing politicians, corporations, unions and local government has just sounded the death knell for brown coal. But crucially, in what’s called the Coal Compromise, they’re going to be given nearly two decades to adjust. The plan is that by 2038 at the latest the last brown coal mines and all the coal fired power plants will be gone for good.

10:24

Eric driving

You might think people in Lusatia would be horrified.

10:56

Herntier at meeting

But Mayor Herntier was one of the members of the Coal Commission that thrashed out the compromise.

CHRISTINE HERNTIER:  We have delivered a great, unique compromise for the whole society. And there are some really concrete proposals for Lusatia.

11:12

Spremberg city building

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter: Spremberg’s mayor insists it’s much better than waiting for coal’s inevitable long-term decline. The government has agreed to kick in 40 billion Euros to kickstart new industries in the brown coal regions.

CHRISTINE HERNTIER: If a country like Germany

11:35

wants to meet its climate goals and transform energy, surely that’s worth two billion [Euros] a year. If you put it into perspective, it’s really not much money and it’s in a good cause.

11:58

Wind farms/Solar farm

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter: The region is already seeing the fruits of Germany’s embrace of renewable energy. Wind turbines and solar farms are sprouting up next to power plants. Germany still relies on domestic and imported coal for about a third of its electricity. But around 40 per cent comes from renewable energy. The aim is to make that 65 per cent by the end of the decade.

12:18

Herntier interview

CHRISTINE HERNTIER: We want to continue to be an energy region. We know plenty about producing energy and distributing it.

12:46

Lakes

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter: They’re even hoping to turn the old coal fields into an eco-tourism destination, as disused mine pits are rehabilitated into artificial lakes. The 2038 deadline should give the region plenty to time to adapt,

12:55

Aerial Berlin

but many activists insist the world can’t wait.

DANIEL HOFINGER:  We have to phase out coal in Germany right now.

13:14

Hofinger and Campbell walk

If we don’t do that, it’s going to be quite literally the end of the world as we know it. The IPCC tells us that if we continue burning coal, we’re running into catastrophic climate change.

13:26

Smokestacks

Music

13:37

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter: As the transition details are being worked out, Ende Gelände announces its next mass occupation will be in Lusatia.

13:41

Ende Gelände video. Super:
Ende Gelände campaign video

Music

13:52

ON SCREEN TEXT:
- Another 20 years?!
- Not with us!
- SAVE THE DATE
- Lusatia territory

14:06

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter: The announcement doesn’t go down well with most locals.

14:13

Frank greets Eric

FRANK: "Hello, welcome to my castle!"

ERIC: "Happy to be here."

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter: Frank Seefeld is a security guard at the coal plants. He’s as passionate about Lusatia as he is about hunting.

14:18

Animals hanging

ERIC: "Oh, my God, what is that?"

FRANK: "Oh, yesterday I was hunting."

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter: As with many Lusatians, he had to find a new way after Communism ended and State subsidies dried up. As well as working security for energy companies, he runs a small business selling preserved meats from his kills.

14:33

ERIC:  "What is that?"

FRANK: "This is a muskrat."

ERIC: "Oh, a rat?"

FRANK: "Yeah, look at this…

14:56

Frank shows meat pretzels

These are pretzels, made of sausages, and in place of salt, we've put nuts."

ERIC: "Oh, that is meat?"

FRANK:  "Yes, this is meat."

ERIC: "A meat pretzel."

15:06

Frank and Eric leave cool room

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter: Frank Seefeld believes the East was hard done by after reunification.

15:20

Frank interview

FRANK SEEFELD:  They sold companies which 4,000 people for one Mark. Then they dismantled the equipment overnight and shipped it to South Africa.

15:25

Frank and Eric walk outside

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter: People learnt to rely on each other -- and they don’t like being pressured by outsiders.

15:41

Frank interview in garden

What kind of region is Lusatia, what makes it so special?

FRANK SEEFELD:  Lusatia is down to earth, it’s friendly, there’s solidarity. If I call my neighbour and say I need some help, he’ll come straight round.

15:47

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter: What do you think about the protest from Ende Gelände?

16:08

FRANK SEEFELD: Protests are fine and we’re preparing for them. But unfortunately, it’s like football. Some people don’t come to watch the game. They come to riot. The famous football hooligans. That’s how it is with Ende Gelände.

16:11

Coal night time vigil

Music

16:33

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter: Two days before the threatened protest, Lusatians are staging a counter-protest. They’ve set up a vigil at a power plant that’s slated to close early in 2028.

16:45

Banners proclaim: ‘We live from coal, not green fairy tales.’ Each worker ending their shift throws a lump of coal in the fire as an act of solidarity.

16:58

Miner vox pop

MINER:   We want to remind people what’s happening to our energy industry. It’s just crazy to say there shouldn’t be coal fired power plants. Where’s the electricity going to come from? Nothing works in the dark.

17:12

Police presence, Cottbus

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter: In the main Lusatian town of Cottbus, there's a growing police presence. And they’re not just keeping an eye out for Ende Gelände.

17:34

Students gather for protest

Well, it’s the day before the big protest and by coincidence across Germany

17:47

Campbell to camera

school students are going on strike for climate change. Though in this coal town it’s a little more difficult. Right now, the millennials are almost outnumbered by police.

17:51

Students march

In many other cities, tens of thousands of students are marching. The organiser here, Konstantin Gorodestsky, has kept his expectations lower.

18:06

Kostantin interview at march

So Kostantin, how many people do you think are marching today?

KONSTANTIN GORODESTSKY: I have counted about 250, maybe 300.

ERIC: That’s good, but it’s a lot less than other German cities.

KONSTANTIN GORODESTSKY: Yes.

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter: Is it difficult to do a protest like this in this coal town?

18:17

[shot continuous]

KONSTANTIN GORODESTSKY: Yes it is, we already had demonstrations against us, which is uncommon in every other German city, I think.

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter: Yeah. So do you feel a bit divided, being from a coal community but protesting against coal?

18:36

KONSTANTIN GORODESTSKY: I am not, because we all know we have to end coal. The question is how fast we have to do it, and the answer in my opinion is that we have to stop it as fast as possible.

18:53

Man on street yells at marchers

MAN ON STREET:  You don’t know what it means to stop electricity!

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter: What do you think of the protest?
MAN ON STREET:  Sad. For me it's a mess. I could beat them all with a stick.

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter: Why?

MAN ON STREET: They don't realise the mistake they're making. Later on, where will they get electricity when there's no wind and no coal? Oh, that won't work.

19:10

Protestors march and chant

PROTESTERS: Where we see our future!... Renewable energies!... That was far too quiet!...That's why we sing it louder!...

19:41

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter: There is a generational divide here. The kids don’t remember Communism, and they don’t see a future in an industry that’s heating the planet. For now, they’re content to make their point in peaceful street marches.

19:55

City family meeting
PROJECTION ON BUILDING:
Change doesn't need violence.

20:24

Families gathered at meeting

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter: That night, coal mining families gather at a power plant to show their support for the coal compromise. Giant videos praise the industry and accuse Ende Gelände of intimidation.

20:29

VIDEO: In Lusatia we’ve always respected each other, even in hard times, with all the hard debates. We’ve never had violence and none of us want that. But outsiders are bringing violence to the discussion.

20:44

Herntier addresses meeting

CHRISTINE HERNTIER:  A warm welcome to the police officers.

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter: Christine Herntier, the mayor of Spremberg, tells them they won’t be pressured to stop coal sooner.

21:04

CHRISTINE HERNTIER:  The compromise we negotiated offers opportunities for Lusatia.

21:14

Ende Gelände’s activists gather at station

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter: From 4am, Ende Gelände’s activists start assembling at Berlin central station, ready to board a train to Lusatia.

21:30

[Choir sings]

21:38

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter: It doesn’t feel like a gathering of football hooligans. They insist it’s only the police who use violence. But they’ve lost faith in peaceful marching.

DANIEL HOFINGER:  I’m a little bit anxious because, of course, doing these blockades of civil disobedience is a different

21:45

Hofinger interview at station

form of protest because we’ve seen that marching doesn’t bring the change that we need. So that’s the form of action that we’re going to take. But yeah, we are going to be like thousands of people, so I’m really looking forward to the day.

22:01

Protestors board train

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter: None of them know their assigned target yet. Coordinators will use an encrypted app to message them to make it harder for police to stop them.

22:17

Protestors on train donning red uniforms

An hour into the journey, they start putting on red uniforms. This is just one of six groups heading for the Lusatian coal fields.

22:36

Hofinger interview on train

DANIEL HOFINGER:  So in order to be more flexible and more effective with our blockades on the train we are splitting up into different action groups called fingers. They have different colours, we are the red finger. And we are perhaps a thousand people maybe on this train now. I don’t have the exact number yet. And we are about 30 minutes away from the station, so yeah we are just about ready to start.

22:48

Protestors on train with maps

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter: One of the reasons for the uniforms is to make it harder for police to identify them.

23:13

Woman scratches fingertips with pin

Many ask us not to film their faces, and start scratching out their fingerprints.

FEMALE PROTESTOR:  We want to prevent that the State or the police or anybody else getting our IDs.

23:20

Police at station. Protestors disembark

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter: Arriving at the station, they still haven’t been told the destination, but at a given signal they split in two. One group rushes down the road to draw the main police force away, while Daniel´s group cuts into the forest.

23:33

Protestors into forest and coal mine pursued by police

Police are waiting at the forest edge, but a flurry of smoke flares lets the crowd rush through. Suddenly, we’re at the edge of a giant coal mine and there’s not enough police to stop the advance.

23:53

Frustrated, some resort to pepper spray and batons.

24:24

MALE PROTESTOR:  The police beat the shit out of me.

24:33

Choir sings at mine site/Police use batons on protestors

[Singing]

24:43

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter: Well, it’s just past dawn, but the first action has been successful.

25:00

Campbell to camera

They’ve only occupied the lip of the mine, but the entire mine has now closed down. And elsewhere in the region there are five other fingers targeting other mines, power stations and railway crossings. It’s going to be a long day.

25:04

Protestors at mine site

For the next ten hours, they bring Lusatia’s coal industry to a standstill. It’s a symbolic act. Coal extraction and burning soon resumes. But the message is as much for the government as the corporations -- coal is going to end, so end it now.

DANIEL HOFINGER:  The German Government wants to support the coal industry.

25:17

Hofinger interview

But there’s a huge social movement in the way of that. And what we’ve seen in Germany is that the change for climate justice didn’t come from the government. It was fought for and won by a strong social movement. And we are part of that movement.

25:47

End sequence

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter: The government Is under intense pressure to shorten the transition. The Green Party is demanding a maximum of ten years, but Germany is still light years ahead of countries planning to expand coal production. Here, it’s not a question of if coal goes, only when.

25:59

Credits [see below]

26:21

Out point

27:00