Referendum for bottom-up coal exit in Germany鈥檚 second city Hamburg
A referendum in Hamburg, Germany鈥檚 second largest city, seeks to ban the use of coal power for heating and electricity generation by 2030, Sven-Michael Veit writes for the Tageszeitung (taz). 鈥淲e in Hamburg have to take the coal exit in our own hands,鈥� says Wiebke Hansen of the anti-coal alliance Tsch眉ss Kohle. The reason for this bottom-up approach is a dispute between the city and the utility Vattenfall, as the latter wants to use its coal plant at Moorburg to supply district heating for Hamburg even though in a 2013 referendum the local citizens voted to re-municipalise the city鈥檚 district heating system. The alliance fears that a new senate in the city could overturn this vote and calls for a second referendum aimed at making climate protection an automatic priority for all infrastructure-related decisions taken in the city. 鈥淥ur aim is not to quickly shut down the Moorburg coal plant,鈥� Hansen says, but to 鈥渇ight against the global rise in temperatures as well as air pollution at local level.鈥�
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