On Thursday, Poland’s mining trade unions advised the government to not phase out coal before 2060.
Poland is the only EU country declining to pledge climate neutrality by 2050. The ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party said that more money and time are needed to shift an economy from coal to cleaner energy sources.
Moreover, the coal trade unions are powerful with miners protests potentially turn violent. PiS has been threading the needle very carefully with these unions, which resulted in unsuccessful efforts from the government to make deep cuts to the sector.
However, Warsaw has been pressured by the coronavirus crisis and the EU climate policies which have added to the cost of burning fossil fuels rather than using cleaner energy sources. The government is seeking to find more decisive steps to tackle the loss-making sector.
Warsaw and Poland’s biggest coal producer PGG had planned to close no less than two mines but the plan was rejected by the unions in July. However, due to slow progress, along with the climate ministry proposal to phase out coal more quickly, Poland’s miners had started an underground protest on Monday.
The unions want the cut-off date for coal to be delayed to 2060 instead of 2050, following the similar transformation of the sector in Germany
“We have 10 years of a discrepancy. Maybe we’ll meet halfway,” Dominik Kolorz, the head of the Solidarity union in southern Poland stated.
