Photograph: Friedemann Vogel/EPA

Germany will pay its utility companies billions of euros to speed up the shutdown of their coal-fired power plants as part of the country’s efforts to fight climate crisis, the government has said.

The agreement reached between federal ministers and representatives of four coalmining states removes a key hurdle in Germany’s plan to curb greenhouse gas emissions over the coming decades.

Some regions, particularly in the less prosperous east, are heavily dependent on mining lignite, or brown coal. Together with imported bituminous – or black – coal it provides about a third of Germany’s electricity needs but is also responsible for a big share of the country’s carbon emissions.

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