Environment Minister Svenja Schulze said Germany would join the Powering Past Coal Alliance on Sunday.
On the day of the demonstrations, Chancellor Angela Merkel and her governing coalition unveiled a new proposal to tackle climate change.
"With that, we can finally also join the alliance of coal-exit countries," Schulze told the group of local German newspapers.
The Powering Past Coal Alliance was founded in 2017 and is comprised of 30 national governments, whose objective is to halt new construction of coal plants, end international funding for coal and adhere to the Paris Climate Agreement goals.
Michael Vassiliadis, head of the IG BCE trade union representing coal, chemicals and energy industries, slammed the governing coalition's proposal.
Watch video 02:02 Share Germany's climate package Send Facebook google+ Whatsapp Tumblr linkedin stumble Digg reddit Newsvine Permalink https://p.dw.com/p/3Pyru Germany announces new climate protection package.
Each evening at 1830 UTC, DW's editors send out a selection of the day's hard news and quality feature journalism. »