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Prezentacja2-Do Druku My presentation should sufficiently explain you: 1. How is the civil society debate in Poland going on? 2. What are the outcoming policy and actions on climate-energy issues alike? and 3. What is the Polish Climate Coalition doing in order to make Polish policy more climate friendly? 1 It is quite usual in a political world to work with opinion pools, and probably quite usual to start the presentation with columns of peoples attitude. This graph shows people attitute towards production of energy from renewable energy resources in Poland from 2008 to 2013. As you can see it is constantly very positive . I can also tell this positive attitude is substantially higher that peoples support to other energy sources in Poland, like atomic energy for example. The variations on this graph result from the fact that I present you the outcomes of 3 different opinion pools, where the questions were different. 2008-2010 – opinion pool of CBOS for ISD with a question „What kind of energy generation should be developed in Poland?” 2011 – no opinion pool has been made on the issue (at least no interesting data was found by the author of the presentation). 2012 – opinion pool of GfK Polonia for Polish Wind Energy Association with a question „With what kind of energy the Poland should be associated?” 2013 – opinion pool of TN OBOP for Institute for Renewable Energy with a question „What kind of energy should be used in your house?” Of course, there are opposite attitudes. People in various parts of Poland are against biogas power plants and against windfarms. For example, local wind farm oppossition groups has joined and been sending letters to ministeries and government to make the law more transparent on the distances the windfarms can be build from the houses. Their initiatives are interesting and some of them worth implementing, but should not stop development of RES in Poland as Polish society is in favour of RES. Normally this positive opinion would be an important compass for the politicians… 2 … but Polish policy on climate and energy (and not only this policy) is created differently than in Western Europe. The genesis is different. This graph shows you the origins of the climate policy in most West European Countries (left hand side) and Poland (right hand side). In West European Countries the peoples positive attitute (from the previous slide) result in activity of national NGOs and politicians, who stimulate bussiness and research capacity and then impact on governmental and international climate policy in European Union and United Nations. The climate and energy policy is actively build bottom-up, whereas in Poland this policy is reactively build top-down. It is the European Union or United Nations who come to Polish government and tell them to be more ambitious (at least people see it in Poland this way). Only upon the reaction of the Polish government various social movements are created based on their attitute to the national policy and bussiness and researchers follow. Because we react to the global or european policy it is much easier to motivate negative attitudes (in spite of them being in minority), than motivate positive attitudes. You probably know the initiative if Ludwik Dorn, noble Polish parliamentarian, who has started an European Citizens Initiative against EU climate package. It is easy to play such negative attitudes, because the object of action is changed. In Poland we do not debate on protection of the global climate, we debate on protection of ourselves from the global , european, national, whatever… climate policy . 3 What are the civil society positions on climate policy in Poland? This graph was created in 2013, based upon the findings from late 2012 and early 2013. The more the organisation is up vertically, the stronger it is in formulation of national policy and the more the organisation is positioned on the left, the more positive it is towards strong climate change abatement and climate policy. As you see the ministeries responsible for energy and climate issues are much divided with the Ministry of State Treasury and the Ministry of Economy on the positive side, and the Ministry of Finances and the Ministry of Environment (this is not funny?!!) on the negative side. Further you have parliamentary groups with very big opposition - PiS (Law and Justice) and small SP (Solidary Poland) on the negative side, and only weak opposition party RP – the Palikot Movement with weak governmental coalition party PSL (Polish Peasant Party) on the positive side. The most important Civic Platform is in the zero position, in spite of the high columns of RES support in Polish society. Below the horisontal line you have the bussiness organisations and trade unions with only Lewiatan (the national organisation of employers) on the positive side. From this type of organisations it have been issued a very negative document – „An assessment of impact of EU Energy Roadmap 2050 on Polish energy sector, economy and households” – signed by National Economic Chamber. The report called against european climate policy as being too costly for Poland. On the bottom you have the civic organisations and institutes (think tanks) from where the „Low- emission Poland 2050” report comes, which calls for a renewal of Poland with a climate policy as an important tool. 4 From this mixture of attitudes the Polish national climate and energy policy is set forth. This policy is about half a minute past 4 o’clock AM . It is quite early, isn’t it? Polish government thinks, he still have like few hours to get up from a dark, warm, coal sleep, to the sunny, windy and renewable work. The climate and energy policy is created by four Ministeries responsible for: State Treasury, Economy and Environment and Finances. More or less what they do in this policy is shown on this clock. The closer the symbol is to the name, the more this ministry has got to do about it. You might be wondering why the Ministry of Finances have not been shown on the slide? Because it sets the clock! ☺ The strongest seems to be the Ministry of State Treasury (as the ministry in the hands of Civic Platform – the stronger governmental coalition group, Włodzimierz Karpiński) and so the whole policy is strengthening the national energy companies (Polish Energy Group, Tauron, Coal Company), who base their bussiness on burning hard and brown coal and maybe the radionuklides in the future. Much weaker is the position of the Ministry of Economy, which is in the hands of the coalition partner – PSL (Janusz Piechociński). It would like to promote more RES, with the RES Act, and more energy efficiency, with white certificates, but is blocked by the stronger ministry (of Finance mostly). However, the governmental proxy on nuclear energy – Hanna Trojanowska - works in this Ministry and does a lot towards Polish first nuclear power plant (because it makes national energy company PGE stronger). The weakest position has the Ministry of Environment, with a business plenipotentiary as a minister – Michał Korolec, which should support RES and energy efficiency, but does it only occasionally, and has just now strongly favoured shale gas research and exploitation - the Act on Hydrocarbons has, for example, limited the right of environmental organisation to court in environmental matters. It looks like government welcomes every kind of energy generation, but without any real support 5 to any of them, which holds the time on high coal dependent economy. Polish government is waiting for the european and international policy to get weaker on climate issues, that is why it wants Poland to be seen as a GHG reduction leader. This situation does not guarantee any strong climate policy and ambitious reduction of GHGs in the future. We are about to wake up with a hand in the potty. 5 In spite of the national policy the question is where will the local policy go and how the climate and energy policy will be seen on the local level? So far the situation is not bad. Climate abatement and adaptation to climate change is accepted by local authorities as a theme of the policy and RES as an opportunity to realise good projects and better the local economy. You might know first Polish self-energy sufficient municipality Kisielice or first city in Convenant of Mayors Bielsko-Biała as good examples, but the others try to folow suit. 115 counties (1/3 of whole) are taking part in the LIFE+ supported project „Good climate for the counties”, of which 22 are officially signed the project declaration and realise EU goal on reduction of 20% GHGs to 2020 (on the slide). You can see the map of those counties on the slide. But maybe more important is the fact, that 80% of that 115 is taking small or big investments in energy efficiency or RES. 35 municipalities so far (1% of Polish municipalities, but ever), are taking part in the Convenant of Mayors initiative and the number is growing (6 newcommers in 2013 up to date). Some municipalities are actively against big national coal and nuclear energy investments. There are also active climate friendly municipalities from the Silesia coal mining region (Jaworzno, Dąbrowa Górnicza) and lignite extraction areas (Konin county). This local level, where a lot of European Union funding is acquired and spend, might be crucial to get Poland on track of active climate policy. 6 And this is where the Polish Climate Coalition is trying to make a change. The Coalition consists of strongest Polish environmental NGOs working on the national and regional level. What we would like to see in the international context of climate policy is: - Poland that supports strong and binding international agreement on climate issues, with high goals in GHG emissions.
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