Ende Gelände 2016 was a large

civil disobedience Civil disobedience is the active and professed refusal of a citizenship, citizen to obey certain laws, demands, orders, or commands of a government (or any other authority). By some definitions, civil disobedience has to be nonviolent to be cal ...

protest A protest (also called a demonstration, remonstration, or remonstrance) is a public act of objection, disapproval or dissent against political advantage. Protests can be thought of as acts of cooperation in which numerous people cooperate ...

movement in Germany to limit

global warming Present-day climate change includes both global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its wider effects on Earth's climate system. Climate change in a broader sense also includes previous long-term changes ...

through

fossil fuel phase-out Fossil fuel phase-out is the proposed gradual global reduction of the use and production of fossil fuels to zero, to reduce air pollution, limit climate change, and strengthen energy independence. It is part of the ongoing renewable energy tra ...

. –

environmental activist The environmental movement (sometimes referred to as the ecology movement) is a social movement that aims to protect the natural world from harmful environmental practices in order to create sustainable living. In its recognition of humanity a ...

s from twelve countries blocked the Welzow-Süd

open-pit Open-pit mining, also known as open-cast or open-cut mining and in larger contexts mega-mining, is a surface mining technique that extracts rock (geology), rock or minerals from the earth. Open-pit mines are used when deposits of commercially ...

coal mine Coal mining is the process of resource extraction, extracting coal from the ground or from a mine. Coal is valued for its Energy value of coal, energy content and since the 1880s has been widely used to Electricity generation, generate electr ...

and the coal-fired Schwarze Pumpe power station, then owned by

Vattenfall Vattenfall is a Swedish multinational corporation, multinational electrical power industry, power company owned by the List of government enterprises of Sweden, Swedish state. Beyond Sweden, the company generates power in Denmark, Finland, Germa ...

(

Spremberg Spremberg or Grodk (, ; Polish: ''Gródek'' ) is a municipality near the Saxon city of Hoyerswerda and is in the Spree-Neiße district of Brandenburg, Germany. First mentioned in 1301, the town alone has 14,028 inhabitants, and the municipalit ...

), from 13 to 15 May 2016.

Context

On 15 August 2015, in the first year of Ende Gelände, activists blocked the

Garzweiler surface mine The Tagebau Garzweiler () is a surface mine () in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia. It is operated by RWE and used for mining lignite Lignite (derived from Latin ''lignum'' meaning 'wood'), often referred to as brown coal, is a ...

owned by

RWE RWE AG is a German multinational energy company headquartered in Essen. It generates and trades electricity in the Asia-Pacific region, Europe and the United States. In July 2020, RWE completed a far-reaching asset swap deal with E.ON first ...

(Ende Gelände 2015). Ende Gelände formed in 2015 as a coalition of German environmental groups and "people from the anti-nuclear and anti-coal movements". The activists of the first Ende Gelände 2015 were hosted by the climate camp " Rheinlandcamp". In 2016 the " Lausitzcamp" hosted the to activists and provided infrastructure and support. In German, ''Ende Gelände'' idiomatically means "Here and no further". Ende Gelände 2016 was part of an international wave of actions called "Break Free from Fossil Fuels". It was followed by Ende Gelände 2017: in the

Rhineland The Rhineland ( ; ; ; ) is a loosely defined area of Western Germany along the Rhine, chiefly Middle Rhine, its middle section. It is the main industrial heartland of Germany because of its many factories, and it has historic ties to the Holy ...

open-pit mines on 24 to 29 August 2017 as well as 3 to 5 November 2017 on (for the

2017 United Nations Climate Change Conference The 2017 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP23) was an international meeting of political leaders, non-state actors and activists to discuss environmental issues. It was held at UN Campus in Bonn, Germany, during 6–17 November 2 ...

Description

During the 48 hours of mass action, the coal-fired Schwarze Pumpe power station (described as "Europe's tenth largest emitter of ") was cut to 20 percent of its power for two days. The nearly shutting down of the power plant over the weekend of Ende Gelände was seen by activists as a great success. Vattenfall Europe's chairman of the board said: "It is an absolute new quality, that a power plant shall be forced to cease its work by violent pressure, which has direct consequences for the German electricity grid. This does not any more only affect Lusatia." The short-term goal of Ende Gelände was to stop the process of Vattenfall selling the mining area. The selling of Lusatia's coal

mining industry Mining is the extraction of valuable geological materials and minerals from the surface of the Earth. Mining is required to obtain most materials that cannot be grown through agricultural processes, or feasibly created artificially in a la ...

was described by Ende Gelände as the biggest single investment in coal power in Europe. Ende Gelände intended to stop the selling process. Instead, Vattenfall should have, according to Ende Gelände, financed a social coal phase out and cover ecological follow up expenditures. The mining region was eventually, after renewed debates in the Swedish Parliament as a direct response to Ende Gelände, sold to EPH in October 2016. Vattenfall initially expected to sell for 2 to 3 billion Euro, but finally had to pay EPH 1.7 billion for EPH taking over all (especially ecological) liabilities in the region. Ende Gelände had the motto in 2016 "we are the investment risk". Organisers describes Ende Gelände 2016 as "the largest ever global civil disobedience against fossil fuels".

Gallery

File:Poster Ende Gelände.jpg, Poster File:Auszug eg lausitzcamp.jpg, Gathering File:Ende Gelaende Einzug Tagebau Tag 1.jpg, Activists in the open-pit coal mine File:Förderband bunt.jpg, Blocking a conveyor belt File:Im Kraftwerk schwarze Pumpe.jpg, Near the power plant File:Schienenblockade.jpg, Blocking railway lines leading to the coal mine File:EndeGelaende-SchwarzePumpe-2.png, The power plant was cut to 20% of its power for two days, preventing 16 kton emissions

References

External links

Official website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ende Gelande 2016 2016 in Germany 2016 in the environment 2016 protests Climate change in Germany Climate change policy Coal mining Coal in Germany Demonstrations Direct action Environmental protests in Germany Mining in Germany Occupations (protest) Spremberg Vattenfall Surface mining foo

Context

Description

Gallery

See also

References

External links