Protesters occupy German village Luetzerath earmarked for demolition to make way for coal mine
Environmental activists occupying a German village due to be swallowed up by a coal mine have vowed to fight on as police gear up to evict them.
The village of Luetzerath in western Germany has gradually been abandoned by its original inhabitants, as it is set to be demolished to make way for an extension to the Garzweiler II lignite mine.
The village stands just a few hundred meters from a vast pit where German utility giant RWE extracts lignite coal to burn in nearby power plants.
The fate of the village embodies the broader debate over Germany’s efforts to wean itself off coal, the most polluting fossil fuel, by 2030, amid the gas crisis.
An environmental activist is surrounded by police officers as he sits on a monopod directly at the demolition edge of the mine. Pic: AP
The mine extracts lignite coal that powers nearby energy plants. Pic: AP
Environmentalists, who warn the coal would release millions of tonnes of climate-heating carbon dioxide and harmful air pollution, moved into the abandoned homes of former residents two years ago.
The group LuetziBleibt – which translates as Luetzi is Staying – claimed “around a couple of hundred people” were currently hunkered down in the village and expects more to join at the weekend.
“We want the coal to stay in the ground because it threatens the basis of human civilisation,” said Johanna Inkermann, a spokesperson for Luetzi is Staying.
“With climate catastrophe already being here, already harshly affecting people in the Global South, who have not caused [it], we are demanding a change in our current economic system,” she told Sky News over the phone from the camp.
Activists said they have tree houses and ‘other structures that are hard to get people out of’. Pic: AP
Occupiers sit on a makeshift platform on stilts, near the demolition edge of the mine. Pic: AP
But the Heinsberg county administration has given the police the go-ahead to evict the occupiers from Tuesday 10 January. The activists expect police to start by fencing off the village to prevent more people from joining.
“We will definitely not be moved,” vowed Ms Inkermann.
“We will keep standing in the way of the destruction that is happening here… we will defend this village and we will defend climate justice.”
A barricade near the demolition edge of the Garzweiler II opencast lignite mine. Pic: AP
About 150 climate activists protested outside the ministry for economy and climate in Berlin. Pic: AP
Last summer the German government said it was forced to fire up additional coal power, in a “bitter but necessary” move to fill the gap left by Russian gas cut off by President Vladimir Putin.
Ministers have been exploring how to boost clean power, aiming to source 80% of the country’s electricity from renewables by 2030.
The ministry for economic affairs and climate action and the mine operator, RWE, were not immediately available to comment, but last year said the war in Ukraine had amplified the importance of a secure supply of lignite coal for power plants.
One study by the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW) claims the lignite coal below Luetzerath was not needed to secure German power supply, even in the absence of Russian gas.
The protesters believe Germany can find ways to manage without the coal.
“It’s about getting the grid more flexible and building up possibilities to store energy,” as well as building further renewable power, said Ms Inkermann.
She said it was not the group’s responsibility to come up with alternatives, but to stop the expansion of the mine to protect people from climate change.
“After all,” she added, the “climate catastrophe doesn’t wait for this problem to be solved. And we don’t have time anymore to to burn more coal… we have to manage multiple crises at the same time. And it’s entirely possible”.
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Elon Musk could be on track for a $1trn pay packet.
Tesla shareholders have approved the whopping financial package for the CEO – who’s already worth an estimated $491bn – if he hits a series of ambitious targets over the next 10 years.
But that $1trn figure (or £761,910,000,000) – which is both one thousand billion and one million million – is almost impossible to imagine for most people.
Even so, we have drilled down into the numbers and examined what you can do with a trillion US dollars – and it turns out, quite a lot.
Show me the money
Laid end to end, a trillion one-dollar bills would cover a distance of approximately 156 billion metres.
That could wrap around the equator 3,890 times, easily reach the sun from Earth (around 149.6 million km) or loop from Earth to the moon 405 times.
That many one-dollar notes could cover a massive area (roughly 10,339 km squared), meaning you could blanket nearly all of Lebanon or Jamaica in bills.
Spend it on sport
You could splash out on virtually all of the world’s major sporting leagues.
The clubs which make up the Premier League are relatively cheap ($30bn), and even when snapping up the UEFA Champions League clubs and the big five top divisions of Spain, Italy, Germany, and France, there’s still $858bn left in the kitty.
The four major US sports leagues for ice hockey, baseball, basketball, and American football (NFL, NBA, MLB and NHL) have a rough valuation of $544bn, according to Sportico.
But then add the IPL cricket league ($120bn) and F1 ($23.1bn) and Musk still has change from an estimated total spend of $829.7bn.
Elon Musk is in the money if he hits targets set by Tesla’s shareholders. File pic: AP
Take over Tesla’s rivals
He could buy up the top 15 largest publicly traded automakers (excluding Tesla) by market capitalisation.
They would include firms like Japan’s Toyota ($275bn), Chinese automaker BYD ($120bn), and luxury brands like Ferrari ($81bn) and Mercedes-Benz ($62bn), as well as BMW ($52bn), Volkswagen ($50bn) and Ford ($48bn).
But there would still be a little change left over; the total bill would be an eye-watering $992bn.
Buy up San Diego
He could buy up every single residential property in San Diego County – valued at a total of $1trn. Seattle is just slightly out of reach at $1.1trn, according to recent data from real estate firm Zillow.
But if he wanted to buy big – there is always Tennessee. The total value of homes in the US state is estimated at $957bn. Or there is Maryland, which at $1.01trn could be bought if he can find a little more cash behind the sofa.
Sadly, he would struggle to scoop up London’s entire housing stock, which in February was valued at just under £2trn ($2.53trn), according to agents Savills.
Cities like New York ($4.6trn) and Los Angeles ($3.9trn) are also not within his budget, hosting America’s most expensive residential markets.
Do something charitable?
There is always the possibility Musk could follow in the footsteps of Microsoft founder Bill Gates, who intends to give away 99% of his vast fortune over the next 20 years.
He could give every single man, woman, and child in the US a share of his cash pile. They would receive approximately $2,917.32 (£2,223.29), based on a population estimate of 342.7 million.
Although it would be roughly $14,348.79 (£10,935.20) for every person (roughly 69.6 million) in the UK.
If he wanted to give the entire globe an early Christmas present, then based on the rough world population estimate of 8.2 billion, everyone would receive $121.80 (£92.87).
Pay off the credit card
With $1trn, he could instantly rewrite history and erase debt interest payments and the government debt from dozens of the world’s sovereign nations.
Or Musk could wipe out the debts of Singapore ($1trn) or South Korea ($0.99trn) in one go, according to figures from the International Monetary Fund’s latest World Economic Outlook (Oct 2025).
But when it comes to the biggest debt-laden countries, $1trn would not even touch the sides.
The US has $38.3trn of government debt (just over one third of the total global debt pile) while the UK has a modest $4.1trn.
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