Protest from the end of the country in Janschalde on 26. June. Image: Circle of friends Video clips / CC0
The energy and climate weekend: from ice-leisure Alps and protests against the coal exit law and RWE
After recording temperatures in Siberia, Grandfish forest band is also widening again this year in Siberia. Different media report that on Sunday a flat of 1.4 million hectares burned. In the summer of 2019, after estimates by Greenpeace, a good ten times so rough flat burned. But still it is unclear how the brand will continue to spread. They are only excited on a small part of the flat, as this is not economically worthwhile. In uninhabited areas, the flames are therefore surprised.
Heat waves, dryness and burning in Arctic widths seem to develop more and more to the new normality in climate change, with the well-known consequence that by forest and moorbranges as well as dutenermafrost even more greenhouse gases are released, which in turn accelerate it.
Meltwater charmed glacier columns in the lower area of the big aletsch in summer 2019. Image: Fau / Christian Sommer
Dramatically, the consequences of climate heat have been shown in the Alps for years. According to a new study by the Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nurnberg, the European mountains will probably lose almost all poached flats until the end of the century.
Between the years 2000 and 2014, the Alpeglecker shrunk by 22 cubic kilometers, which are 17 percent of their total mass. The Swiss Alps were particularly affected. Although the glacier loss in many places of the Alps has been observed locally for quite some time, the new study based on radar and satellite quantities, but allows a new overall picture for the Alps. The newly obtained data offer a basis for more detailed modeling of the art glacier drainage.
If the water supply from the glacier melt decreases in the future, the far-reaching consequences for the entire region. So Rhone and Po are fed to around a Funftel from the meltwater of the glaciers in summer. The power generation of hydropower was also influenced.
Money gifts and occupied excavators
On Friday, the Bundestag is advised via the coal exit law as well as coal regions on the Structural Structure Act. About the design of the coal exit law, which remains substantially unnecessary, we have already reported at this point (Berlin’s farewell to climate protection).
Bis Spad 2038 all coal power plants in Germany are to be switched off. For the decommissioning of the lignite, 4.35 billion euros deciding on the power plant operators. There are several checks of the shut-off plan, whereby the exit could be preferred by three years. The coalition of these days has still negotiated over the reductions on the shutdown of the coal-fired power plants, with the result that the state is still a lot on which. Thus, the operators should now be decided on the year 2027 for decommissioning. Reason for the conversion of hard coal to gas were more than doubled for the start time.
The high of the intended compensations for power plant operators remains difficult to understand, as it shows today that power generation in coal-fired power plants, primarily in old lignite power plants, is unpretentably, what we have reported several times at this point.
So the climate alliance is criticized that the public contracts with the power plant operators "Too little climate protection for too much money" brought. "The realitat is overhighing more and more the agreed coal outward. Currently renewable and gas power plants produce considerably gunstiger. Many coal-fired power plants have been working economically for a long time and should be better off", explains Stefanie Langkamp from the climate alliance
The current coordination process was accompanied on the coal outlet of excavator occupations in Lausitz and in the open pit of Garzweiler by activists of the end of the landing and use carbon stop. Fridays for Future protested in Garzweiler and before the Federal Ministry of Economics in Berlin.
"End" Does the planned coal exit law call a coal extension law. Ronja because, spokeswoman of the federalist end explanes: "Durren, forest charts and 38 degrees in Siberia make it clear: every further day coal stream is a climate crime. The Federal Government wants to ensure that this crime continues for 18 more years with its coal extension law." For the 1. July has announced the end of the country to block the party headquarters of the SPD in Berlin.
Criticism of RWE: Missing for climate protection and human rights
The Annual General Meeting of the Action Parts was protested on Friday before the RWE headquarters in Essen. The Annual General Meeting itself was virtually this year in the face of the Covid 19 pandemic. The protests were also directed against the plan of the Federal Government, the Group for the coal exit at 2.7 billion euros to declare as well as against the existence of the Tagaus Garzweiler until 2038, the further Dorfer falls victim to the victim.
Antje Grothus from the initiative Buirer for Buir criticized that RWE should also coincide with the structural change in the region: "Instead of providing the civil society and environmental and nature conservation associations in structural change, the future agency Rheinische Revier overlooks the coal group represented in the observation Council and the Mining Union Igbce, with the project and funds to decide. According to which criteria these takes place is completely intransparent. It hurts the climate, the future-proof structural change and our democracy that neither the NRW state government nor the municipalities of RWE emancipate."
The umbrella organization of critical actions submitted three counter-connectors to the Annual General Meeting. The first directed against the payment of a dividend of 80 cents. Instead, the balance sheet profit in 2019 should be used to set up various funds for approximately climate damage, social and ecological consequences of the mining of the imported hard coal and damage through the lignite building in Germany.
The two other applications, on the other hand, set up to relieve the Management Board and the Supervisory Board. It is called: "The Management Board of RWE AG is not sufficient to implement his responsibility to implement more effective measures for climate protection and comply with human rights due diligence."
RWE is far from becoming climate-neutral, as Executive Board Rolf Martin Schmitz was the destination for the year 2040. "If RWE has been implementing its own climate goals, it still ran to an emblem beyond 9.5 degrees Celsius", write the critical actions, D.H. If the 30 largest DAX companies were all so economic as RWE. RWE reserved the right to take legal action against the coal outlet of the Netherlands.
Further criticisms are the continuing of the tape building Hambach and Garzweiler and the disregard of UN specifications on human rights due diligence. The hard coal for the power plows of RWE comes to coarse parts from Russia and from Colombia, where "operated with fatal ecological damage and under disregard of human rights tape" became.
Against the relief of the Supervisory Board speaks from the point of view of critical actions that it had failed, "Guided business management and to ensure that they perceive their responsibility for nuclear phase-out". This refers to the further operation of the uranium enrichment plant of Urenco in Gronau. RWE is Shareholders of Urenco.
AKW Fessenheim shut down
When expanding renewable energies, it still does not look good in Germany. As the specialist information service IWR reports, wind power in the youngest tendering of the Federal Network Agency remains almost half the half. The bids for 2. June amounted to 467.59 MW at an advertised amount of 825.53 megawatts. It looked very different from the bids for photovoltaic systems. Here were 96.36 MW, the total amount of bids amounted to 447.23 MW.
Finally, a positive message: in the night of 29. On the 30. June the second reactor of the nuclear power plant Fessenheim in Alsace has been switched off, which the power plant is now operating after 42 years. However, risks continue to exist until the fuel elements are abducted and can be removed from the system. That will take until 2023.
Nevertheless, the population in nearby Freiburg and Basel has been safer since today safer. For a long time, the French government had tossed the shutdown of the ancient reactors in Fessenheim to the commissioning of the new Flamanville nuclear power plant, which, when it should take place at all, further narrowed. In February, the decommissioning of Fessenheim was definitely decided. Thus, in France, however, there are still 56 atomic reactors on the net, many of them highly advanced. In 2018, Emmanuel Macron announced that by 2035, the proportion of nuclear power plants to the power generation of today 70 percent should be reduced to 50 percent and 14 reactors were turned off.