[hannob]

This is largely untrue or inaccurate. There has been a small uptick in lignite use for a couple of years, but it's been going down again. But that was not overall coal use, hard coal was in steady decline. The last new coal plant constructions were started in 2009. This was an unfortunate and wrong decision, but it's been a while ago. Most of the investors of these plants regret that decision, because they aren't needed a whole lot. That villages had to be removed due to coal mining is not something that's happening "these days", it's been happening for decades. However none of that has been decided lately. Goes all back to decisions made in the 90s. It doesn't make it better, but your comment makes it sound that this is a recent development. It's not. Recently some existing plans for lignite open casts were reduced and some villages will be saved.

Demand is not growing overall, it's been in decline for a couple of years (with occasional upticks, but that's to be expected).

Germany is the largest total CO2 source in the EU, but it's also the largest country. Per capita emissions are still relatively high though.

It's not all green in Germany, a lot could be better. I'm in full agreement that the huge lignite mines and plants are a terrible thing, but one should still stick to facts. But despite all bads a lot is going in the right direction.