Several thousand demonstrators converged on Bonn on Saturday ahead of UN climate negotiations demanding that governments step up action to halt global warming, starting with a rapid phase-out of coal-burning power plants.
Sweden gave the green light Saturday for state-owned energy giant Vattenfall to sell its German coal operations, as the company moves away from activities blamed for climate change.
German police say they arrested 120 people following violent clashes between environmental activists and security personnel at anti-coal demonstrations in the east of the country.
A new report reveals that Germany is subsidizing coal with more than €3 billion in public funds a year, even given the country's commitment to cutting carbon emissions.
It might sound like one of the environmental group's protest stunts, but Greenpeace insists it really does want to buy up a series of German brown coal mines and plants offered for sale by Swedish power company Vattenfall.
Environment Minister Barbara Hendricks loosed a broadside against her cabinet colleagues on Friday in a guest article for Die Welt, saying that they had decided to do too little to reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions in a way that would cost too much.
The country is due to shut down its nuclear power plants by 2022 in favour of fossil fuels and renewable energy, but customers are flocking to a new provider's offer of "100 percent nuclear power".
Climate NGOs reserved special criticism for Germany in an annual report on countries' action against climate change as a UN summit gets underway in Peru.
Despite solemn pledges to switch over to clean energy, brown coal is booming in Germany. Environmentalists warn it is endangering the country's record as a leader on climate issues.
Social Democrat chief Sigmar Gabriel is on a major charm offensive, racing across the country to win over sceptics to the plan for a coalition with Chancellor Angela Merkel.
The International Energy Agency said Friday that Germany must shield its consumers from paying too much of the cost of its ambitious switch from nuclear power and fossil fuels toward renewable energy.
Germany's energy transition project - in which nuclear power will be phased out and replaced with energy from renewable sources - is facing the challenges of cheap coal, unresolved energy storage and an out-of-date electricity grid.
Germany's fourth-biggest electricity provider Vattenfall is coming under increasingly hostile scrutiny in its Swedish homeland - for its poor German environmental record and because it is failing to produce huge profits.
German scientists have developed a new technology to transform garden waste into fuel overnight, <i>Der Spiegel</i> magazine reported over the weekend. The resulting brown pellets can be used to fire conventional power stations.
Millions of train passengers in North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) could be faced with disrupted journeys this winter if a regional coal plant is shut down as planned - causing power shortages, a rail boss warned on Thursday.
The German government wants to encourage the construction of new coal and gas power plants with millions of euros from a fund for promoting clean energy and combating climate change.
Four days after a landslide pulled homes into a lake killing three people in Nachterstedt, the state of Saxony-Anhalt’s premier announced on Wednesday that all lakes made from former open-pit mines will be inspected.
Swedish energy company Vattenfall will fire up an experimental coal power plant in Brandenburg on Tuesday with the aim of trapping the unwanted carbon dioxide emissions.
