Lignite open pit mines have swallowed entire villages and RWE has resettled 41,000 people since the 1940s. The villages are mostly resettled a few kilometers further including houses, churches and cemeteries. The Garzweiler mine - although in operation since 2006 - has caused the resettlement of six villages and the expansion threatens the existence of 12 villages that are home to 7,600 residents. Demolition of the first four villages (Unterwestrich, Oberwestrich, Kuckum and Beverath) is scheduled to begin in 2023. A number of villagers have formed an alliance under the name of 'Menschenrecht vor Bergrecht'  and is resisting RWE's claim on their land in court. In addition, the villages of Mannheim and Morschenich will be resettled before 2022 and 2024, respectively, to make space for the Hambach open-cast mine which has already resettled four villages.

RWE is Europe's biggest single emitter of CO2 with 118 megaton of CO2 emissions in 2018 and therefore contributes to the acceleration of climate change. In 2019 gas accounted for 33% of RWE’s generation capacity, followed by lignite (24%), renewables (22%) and hard coal (9%). In addition nuclear had a share of 7% and 5% of pumped storage and batteries. Besides the burning of gas, hard coal and lignite, RWE is involved in mining lignite which is the dirtiest of fossil fuels. RWE mines almost 100 million tons of lignite each year in its three open cast mines in North-Rhine Westphalia: Garzweiler 35 million tons; Hambach 40 million tons and Inden 20 million tons. The company also runs several lignite power plants of which three are part of Europe's five most polluting power plants.

In November 2015 Saúl Luciano Lliuya, a Peruvian farmer and mountain guide, filed a lawsuit against RWE with the help of Germanwatch. RWE's enormous emissions threaten Raúls family, property and a large part of his home city of Huaraz.

Since 2015 the Hambach mine has become a focus of the activist alliance Ende Gelände who use civil disobedience to stop the lignite mining. RWE's Hambach mine threatens the 12,000 year old Hambacher forest, home to an oak-hornbeam woodland and 142 species of birds, 10 species of baths and rare animals protected under EU law, such as the middle spotted woodpecker, the spring frog or the dormouse. Today only 10% of the original forest is left and RWE plans to clear 70ha a year to enable their Hambach mine to expand. Activists have occupied the forest and try to stop the clearance by means of tree houses.