TOSCA BARNES

Angela Merkel’s progressive environmental policies have earned her the moniker ‘The Climate Chancellor’. Yet despite a promise to phase out coal power by 2035, Germany continues to expand its vast lignite coal mines, as the government struggle to match demand with greener alternatives.

Across Germany, the battle lines are drawn – between the coal miners faced with losing their jobs, and the climate change protesters and villagers who are losing their homes to make way for the mines – and this fight is being taken to the polling stations. The far right AfD is campaigning the save the coal mines, placing jobs over the environment. Meanwhile the Green Party is demanding quicker action towards renewables. Both sides are angry and feel unrepresented by Merkel’s centrist CDU party.