{"id":7370,"date":"2018-12-18T07:47:04","date_gmt":"2018-12-18T07:47:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/?p=7370"},"modified":"2018-12-18T07:47:04","modified_gmt":"2018-12-18T07:47:04","slug":"report-from-polands-coal-face","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/2018\/12\/18\/report-from-polands-coal-face\/","title":{"rendered":"Report from Poland's Coal-face"},"content":{"rendered":"

Today's post is a guest blog by David Oldroyd who has lived in Poland for many years and who writes a regular Letter from Poland.<\/em> \u00a0The third December 18 letter concerns the Polish backdrop to COP24. \u00a0Here it is:<\/p>\n

From the Economist 13 December<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Why are so many Polish towns polluted? \u00a0The burning of coal at home is\u00a0the main culprit.<\/em><\/p>\n

WORLD LEADERS gathered in\u00a0Katowice, south-western\u00a0Poland, this week for the UN\u2019s\u00a0COP24 climate conference. \u00a0With decarbonisation on the\u00a0agenda, Katowice, in the heart\u00a0of coal-mining country, was a\u00a0surprising choice of location. \u00a0The event\u2019s sponsors include\u00a0Europe\u2019s largest coking coal company, and guests were greeted by a coal-miners\u2019 band. The\u00a0city of 300,000 inhabitants is among the most polluted in Europe. And in Poland it is far from\u00a0alone. The country has 36 of Europe\u2019s 50 most-polluted towns (in terms of particulate\u00a0material (PM2.5) or fine dust), according to the World Health Organisation. Earlier this year,\u00a0the EU Court of Justice ruled that Poland \u201cpersistently exceeded\u201d limits to regulate the\u00a0amount of pollutants in the air.<\/em><\/p>\n

Coal is largely to blame. Poland gets around 80% of its electricity from the stuff, be it\u00a0domestically produced or imported from Russia. On December 4th, when Poland celebrated\u00a0Miners\u2019 Day, President Andrzej Duda said he \u201cwill not allow anyone to murder Poland\u2019s\u00a0mining\u201d. He had stated at the opening of COP24 that Poland\u2019s use of coal \u201cdoes not clash\u00a0with climate protection\u201d. The government, which is under pressure from the EU to cut carbon\u00a0emissions, is aiming to get 60% of its energy from coal in 2030, supplemented by energy from\u00a0wind farms and nuclear power.<\/em><\/p>\n

Apart from missing a \u20180\u2019 from the population (actually 3,029,000)\u00a0of the conurbation around Katowice known as the\u00a0Upper Silesian Metropolitan\u00a0Area \u2013 USMA (G\u00f3rnosl\u0105ski\u00a0Zwi\u0105zek Metropolitalny), the\u00a0Economist extract cannot be\u00a0faulted. ... it\u00a0comprises 14 conjoined urban\u00a0areas. Our beloved Tychy is the\u00a0southernmost.<\/p>\n

In the heart of Katowice the\u00a0famous \u2018Saucer\u2019 (Spodek) arena built in communist times is clearly to\u00a0be seen and on the adjacent roundabout under which the motorway runs, is the Klub\u00a0Kr\u00f3lestwo, glass-covered structure from which the sun is reflected in which the Climate Hub\u00a0was held and where I preached about Spaceship Earth; prospects to a small group of\u00a0powerless fellow travellers. After Al Gore has made his presentation to the main conference\u00a0delegates (with Karola interpreting for the Poles) he headed across to the Klub Kr\u00f3lestwo to\u00a0occupy the same small stage that I had trodden five days before, no doubt attracting a\u00a0rather larger gathering of fringe supporters. I did not even get to know of his admirable visit\u00a0to the dissident arena until after his event.<\/p>\n

Beneath the surface of the Upper Silesian region lie thick coal seams to a depth to 1000\u00a0meters, an estimated 70 billion tons which offer good conditions for extraction. Above the\u00a0ground live millions who have little information or concern about the dire trajectory of the\u00a0impact of current economic systems whose growth impacts and disturbs the balance\u00a0between our species and nature. The banner carried by Climate Justice Activists calls for\u00a0\u201cSYSTEM CHANGE NOT CLIMATE CHANGE\u201d. Systems are led by powerful human agents who\u00a0are not inclined to undo the systems\u00a0that gifted them their popularity, power,wealth and status. This is not good news\u00a0for Spaceship Earth and its species. \u201cWe\u00a0are now in a world whose key leaders,\u00a0especially the president of the United\u00a0States, remain wilfully oblivious to its\u00a0long-term problems. They put policies\u00a0like deregulation, fake nationalist\u00a0solutions, and profits for the already\u00a0grotesquely wealthy ahead of the future\u00a0lives of the mass of citizens.\u201d - a\u00a0comment from the independent media.<\/p>\n

And extracted from today\u2019s BBC<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\u2026 There are 196 countries in the UN and 192 counties agree,\" said Mohamed Rasheed\u00a0[President of Maldives] \"We are just talking about four that do not agree, and these four are\u00a0taking us hostage.\" For the more than 20,000 people attending these talks, the end can't\u00a0come quickly enough. The expectation is that it will be Saturday afternoon at the earliest. \u00a0Some are worried that it could go into Sunday, but most delegates have flights to catch on\u00a0that date so the pressure will be on to finish by then \u2026<\/em><\/p>\n

Poland holds the COP presidency but there is a lot of concern among delegates that they lack\u00a0an overall picture of what should emerge from the meeting. Most people want to see a\u00a0strong rulebook, a commitment by countries to raise their ambitions and carbon cutting\u00a0promises before 2020 and some clarity on how much money will be delivered to poorer\u00a0countries - as well as when it will arrive. While some negotiators say the Poles are doing a\u00a0good job in difficult circumstances, many are critical, saying they are responding to the needs\u00a0of the rich and not the poor.<\/p>\n

When and where were the poor ever favoured ahead of the rich and powerful? But\u00a0greenhouse gas from rich or poor will not differentiate as it warms \u201cHothouse Earth\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today's post is a guest blog by David Oldroyd who has lived in Poland for many years and who writes a regular Letter from Poland. \u00a0The third December 18 letter concerns the Polish backdrop to COP24. \u00a0Here it is: From...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":237,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7370","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-comment","category-news-and-updates"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7370","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/237"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7370"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7370\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7370"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7370"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7370"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}