Poland on Friday set a deadline of 2049 to abandon coal mining — part of a green shift that’s delighting many in Brussels.
Over the past few months, the Polish Climate Ministry has rolled out a 10 billion złoty (€2.2 billion) green investment package and a deal to boost the country’s offshore wind capacity. Earlier this month a major revamp of Poland’s 2040 climate goals included new renewable and nuclear energy infrastructure.
However, it’s not that the EU’s most coal-dependent country has suddenly undergone a green conversion.
It’s more that the political, economic and social costs of using coal to generate more than 70 percent of electricity and being the EU’s only member refusing to commit to a domestic 2050 goal of climate neutrality are mounting.
While climate standards are a factor, economic concerns were central to the shift, Climate Minister Michał Kurtyka told POLITICO.
Such a shift is “unavoidable,” he said, adding: “We are going to create a zero-emissions energy system for the future centered on offshore wind, nuclear and decentralized energy.”
Due to its high extraction costs and the pressure posed by increasing costs under the EU’s Emissions Tradition System, it was impossible to keep coal as the central pillar of Poland’s energy landscape indefinitely, he said.
“The government is aware that coal power will generate massive losses from 2025 onward and renewables are the only energy sources that can brought online quickly enough,” said Joanna Maćkowiak-Pandera, CEO of energy policy think tank Forum Energii, arguing that “the shift is certainly real.”
Many of those polluting power plants were built under communism and are ending their useful lifespan. “More than 70 percent of our power plants are over 40 years old,” Kurtyka said.
Backing away from black
Efforts to build new coal-fired plants are being undermined by financial reality — the reason state-owned utilities had to abandon plans to build the Ostrołęka station earlier this year.
There’s also growing pressure to limit financing under the bloc’s Just Transition Fund for countries that don’t conform to the 2050 target.
That’s led to a reassessment of clean energy in Warsaw, where just a few years ago the government was passing legislation to make new onshore wind developments all but impossible. Kurtyka pointed to a recent surge in solar power— installations have more than quadrupled over two years — as part of a wider public appetite for clean energy.
No matter the motivation, Brussels is pretty pleased that Poland’s traditional defense of coal — something that has characterized governments of both the left and the right — may be shifting.
“The way I see Poland reacting right now, in terms of adaptation, in terms of looking for new possibility, it is really inspirational,” Commission Vice President Frans Timmermans said at an event in Katowice earlier this month. “And I think it is completely underestimated [in] other parts of Europe.”
That doesn’t mean Warsaw has suddenly become an enthusiastic advocate of the European Green Deal.
“Don’t expect a sudden commitment to all the CO2 targets or a German-style energy transition, with clear documents setting out goals for 2030, 40 and 50,” said Maćkowiak-Pandera. “This is Poland. We hate committing to anything if we aren’t 200 percent sure that we can accomplish it.”
Kurtyka defended Poland’s cautious stance on Brussels’ climate goals, arguing that “the biggest impact of the revised targets will fall on the shoulders of the poorest member states … We bring important questions about feasibility to Brussels.”
He was also skeptical of efforts to condition access to programs like the Just Transition Fund to climate targets. Brussels needed to offer the most affected countries “safety nets” robust enough to deal with “switching hundreds of thousands of jobs in the fossil fuel industry to climate neutrality industries … Solidarity is a basic principle of the European Union, and it makes sense in this situation.”
While Brussels has reacted enthusiastically to the perceived policy pivot, environmentalists are more skeptical.
“We see a bit of schizophrenia in the Polish government at the moment,” said Joanna Flisowska, head of climate and energy at Greenpeace Poland. “Mr. Kurtyka is very keen on renewables but the fact that some in Warsaw that talk about burning coal in 2060 — the year when even China has committed to climate neutrality — shows how regressive this government is.”
Flisowska said that while recent announcements were encouraging, the move toward a green transition lacked “courage” and clarity. “If they want to show that they’re serious they can start at the next Council meeting, where we hope Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki will support the EU’s new 2030 target” to cut emissions by 55 percent.
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