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Warsaw has implemented a project aimed at limiting food waste, with 76 schools joining the School Does Not Waste project
Poland has one of the largest housing stocks in Europe (almost 13.9 million residential units) but around 72% of the total was built using pre-1989 technologies. Around 70% of single-family houses in the country use coal for heating. Coal powers the bulk of electricity (90%) generated in Poland. The country also has one of the highest per capita rates of coal consumption in the world.
The Local Leaders for Europe podcast is a series of interviews conducted at the European Committee of the Regions, the EU's assembly of regional and local authorities. In this episode 7, young elected politicians Emilia Wasielewska, city councillor in Konin, Poland, and Manolis Mavrommatis, deputy mayor in the municipality of Dorida, Greece, show how their generation strive to deliver the European Green Deal locally by leading youth groups that are committed to make their own territories greener, cleaner and more welcoming. They discuss how their cities are tackling climate change at the local level. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
The European Committee of the Regions, together with the International Cities of Refuge Network (ICORN) and the city of Gdańsk, announced today, at the presence of Commissioner for Home Affairs, Ylva Johansson , the creation of the Mayor Paweł Adamowicz Award. The award - named after Paweł Adamowicz, mayor of Gdańsk and member of the CoR, murdered in 2019 - will honour those who fight for freedom and solidarity, and against intolerance, oppression and xenophobia.
Little has happened since Zittau filed an objection to the continuation of the Turów opencast mine in March 2020 and the scientific study by geologist Dr. habil. Ralf E. Krupp was presented at a press conference in the Citizens' Hall of the Zittau City Hall. The study revealed that a continuation of the Turów (PL) open-cast mine […]
For years, the EU Emissions Trading System (EU ETS), the EU’s flagship policy to tackle global warming, was considered a flop. Brussels had distributed too many free emission allowances…
Poland moved closer to ending its heavy reliance on coal Friday (25 September) as the government and miners' unions agreed a landmark plan to phase out mines by 2049.
Szczecin has become the second Polish town to receive a loan from the EIB to finance a municipal development plan for social and affordable housing. The EIB has agreed to lend up to PLN 85 million (approx. €20 million) to two housing companies owned by the City of Szczecin for the construction and renovation of 250 social and affordable housing units (169 new and 81 renovated) and associated underground parking facilities.
Three quarters of all district heating in Poland comes from burning coal. So the country is looking for ways to reduce this. It’s why subsidies are provided for combined heat and power (CHP) plants that burn either coal, gas or biomass, which all have lower emissions. But a report by IEEFA authored by Gerard Wynn, …
Just Transition to Climate Neutrality – Doing Right by the Regions
A report by WWF Germany, February 2020 Just transition is a buzzword in policy circles today. There is consensus that the transition towards climate neutrality should be a just one. However, when and even if such a transition should really take place, is still met with vastly diverging viewpoints. At the same time, what ‘just’ actually means and what its implications are for national and EU policy is even less certain. This report – a review of four case study regions of the transition from coal in Europe – illustrates that even though each region is different, the challenges they face to ensure a just transition from coal are strikingly similar. Download
The European Union should scrap its Emissions Trading System or exempt Poland from the scheme, which helps combat global warming, to free up funds for Warsaw to fight the effects of the coronavirus, a senior Polish official said.
Three wind farms are to be constructed in northern Poland, thanks to a credit agreement between PGE Polska Grupa Energetyczna and the European Investment Bank (EIB). The construction of Starza, Rybice and Karnice II (combined into the Klaster project) will be financed with PLN 272.5m (approx. EUR 64m), announced the EU bank in a press release. The Klaster project on the Baltic coast will have a total capacity of up to 97 MW. It meets the commitment by PGE to “invest in renewable sources of energy that will help to decarbonise the energy sector in Poland”.
The European Commission’s €7.5-billion-strong Just Transition Fund (JTF) is set to allocate €2 billion to Poland and €877 million to Germany under a proposal sent to national governments on Wednesday (15 January).
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With the power not only to counter climate change but also bringing considerable environmental, economic, and social benefits – the number of renewable energy communities and cooperatives in Europe is increasing. In central and eastern Europe, however, prospective energy communities have to overcome significant odds – with a lack of support and investment at the national level. EU-level rhetoric will have to be backed up by real commitments if the targets to boost such projects are to be met.
This project presents a classic example of how the European level approach can mobilise and enable a local community to use regional resources effectively. The implementation of this project highlighted that the initial analysis of the local resources and the potential of a region have to be carried out before the start of any project.
Five Polish citizens are taking their government to court over its ‘regressive’ climate stance and failure to act to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The claimants include a farmer, a plant wholesaler, an ecotourism business owner, parents and a youth climate campaigner, all impacted directly by the intensifying weather events the country is seeing as climate change worsens. Three of the legal cases have launched today – with two further cases launching later this month. Poland’s climate failings To comply with its commitments under the Polish Civil Code and human rights law, the Polish Government must reduce the country’s emissions by 61% by 2030 (on 1990 levels) and reach net-zero by 2043. Yet the Polish Government is one of a minority of EU governments which has failed to announce any long-term strategy to meet its obligations under the UNFCCC Paris Agreement and it is currently ranked near the bottom of international rankings on climate effort.
It is a unique initiative on a national scale, as citizens and other city stakeholders are involved in planning the city’s development strategy and then implementing it together.
As the residents are the beating heart of this transformation, the Deep Listening method, brought from the Mondragon Valley in the Basque Country, was used to co-create a long-term vision of Rybnik’s future with them. This method involved a series of in-depth interviews with residents and a complex process of analysis. Deep Listening is a key methodology to foster more effective collective action for social change.
With your support, we've had some big wins against coal in 2020 2020 has brought unique and unprecedented challenges socially and economically. It has changed the way we all work now and in the future but while life at ClientEarth has looked very different this year, we can’t and won’t ignore the climate crisis ahead of us. We’ve continued to fight – and win - against polluting coal across Europe and have begun working with partners across Asia to highlight the environmental, financial and legal risks of continuing to invest in coal. Here are some of the things you’ve helped us achieve:
Sometimes one can indeed be a prophet in one’s own land. When work began on building a third unit at the power plant in Ostrołęka, central Poland, in 2009, independent experts warned that it was a…
Poland moved a step closer to formally endorsing the EU’s 2050 climate neutrality goal this week when its climate ministry presented an update of the country’s 2040 energy roadmap during an online event hosted by EURACTIV.
Berlin et Varsovie devraient être les grandes gagnantes de ce mécanisme visant à aider les économies à sortir des énergies fossiles.
For the last two weeks of March, while Poland was experiencing the difficulties created by Covid-19, electricity demand dropped by as much as 8.5 percent. This drop has effectively increased the share…
Long-term renovation strategies are a requirement of the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (EPBD) for all member states. Developed at national level, LTRS goes hand-in-hand with local building renovation initiatives, and both are essential to accelerating the transition towards reaching energy efficiency and climate targets.
These factsheets, prepared by BPIE and national Green Building Councils for the H2020 project Build Upon2, identify which levels of governance must cooperate during the design and implementation of long-term renovation strategies across 8 countries: Croatia, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Poland, Spain, Turkey, and the UK. Each factsheet also highlights the status quo of the process, as well as successes and challenges that are faced at local or national level.
Poland’s PGE is one of Europe’s most fossil fuel intensive energy firms. Coal makes up around 90% of its electricity generation. It’s been investing around PLN 28bn ($7.2bn, €7bn) to build three new coal power plant units, acquire the Polish coal assets of France’s EDF, and upgrade its existing fleet to meet air quality standards. But a new and detailed report from IEEFA warns that the profitability of these investments will decline in the 2020s thanks to rising carbon costs, falling capacity payments and high maintenance expenditures. A high carbon price will make them loss-making. Instead the report “How to Create a Profitable Polish Electricity System” recommends that PGE invest urgently in low-carbon, low-risk, high-cash generating assets, and especially renewables.
Efforts by Polish state-owned utility PGE to expand a brown coal mine near the Czech border is putting Poland at odds with Prague — normally a close ally on energy issues.
The Turów mine's current license expires in April. PGE's goal is to continue mining until 2044 and to expand the mining area to just 100 meters from the border.
The Czech and German towns just a few kilometers from the mine and the smokestacks of PGE's 1.3-gigawatt power plant — Europe’s seventh-most polluting — are furious about the idea.
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