BERLIN/ERKELENZ (dpa-AFX) - Climate Protection Minister Robert Habeck (Greens) has little sympathy for the massive protests against the demolition of Lützerath for lignite mining. "There are many good reasons to demonstrate for more climate protection, for all I care, even against the Greens. But Lützerath is simply the wrong symbol," Habeck told Der Spiegel.

The village is not the symbol for a continuation of the Garzweiler open-cast lignite mine in the Rhineland, but "it is the end of the line," Habeck said. He added that the coal phase-out in the coalfield there was being brought forward by eight years to 2030, which had always been the goal of the climate movement. "The agreement gives us planning security. Because of it, investments are now being made in a climate-neutral energy supply, in hydrogen power plants."

Habeck defended a corresponding agreement between the federal government, the state of North Rhine-Westphalia and the energy company RWE. He said this meant that "we are saving five localities and farms with around 450 residents. Hambach Forest has been secured. The approved mining volume for coal in the open pit has been halved by the agreement."

On Friday morning, activists protested in front of RWE's corporate headquarters in Essen. According to their statements, several of them chained themselves to the entrance gate.

Habeck also expressed concern about a growing fear of the future among young people. "I am driven by the fact that part of the young generation is in danger of losing hope," he told the magazine. "Twenty-year-olds today are considering whether they want to have children at all." He said he knew this debate from his youth, and for 30 years it had disappeared. "Now it's back again. Understandably, the climate crisis is a reality."/toz/DP/jha