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Poland on Tuesday named the EU's largest producer of high-quality coking coal among several coal-sector companies that it chose to partner with the UN's COP 24 global climate summit opening this weekend in the southern coal city of Katowice.
Polish Environment minister Henryk Kowalczyk told reporters in Warsaw that the state-owned JWS company along with coal-based energy companies PGE and Tauron were chosen as partners for the global talks aimed at reducing global warming through cutting greenhouse gas emissions.
Poland's PZU insurance giant, its PKO BP bank and the PGNiG natural gas company are also sponsors. All six companies are state-owned.
Relying primarily on coal for some 80 percent of its energy, Poland is among the EU's most polluted members.
In a policy paper published this week, its right-wing Law and Justice (PiS) government said it aims to reduce reliance on coal to 60 percent by 2030 by boosting renewables and adding nuclear energy to its mix.
The UN's climate chief Patricia Espinosa insists the summit in Poland must produce a detailed programme to move the Paris climate accord forward.
World leaders have been trying to breathe new life into the 195-nation Paris Agreement amid backsliding from several nations -- most notably the United States -- over commitments made when it was signed in December 2015.
It is to take effect in 2020 and calls for limiting global warming to less than two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.
Experts warn that the global measure is on track to surpass three degrees by 2100 and urge governments they must now do even more than first planned if global warming is to be reined in at all.
Greenpeace protests ahead of Poland climate summit
Warsaw (AFP) Nov 27, 2018 -
Six Greenpeace activists scaled a massive chimney at Poland's Belchatow coal-fired power plant on Tuesday and will remain there overnight, as one of Europe's largest polluters gears up to host the COP24 climate summit.
The protesting climbers "have the appropriate equipment to spend the night in difficult conditions," Greenpeace said in a statement.
In total nine activists from around the world scaled the 180-metre (560-foot) tower as part of a Greenpeace campaign aimed at phasing out coal use.
"We want to draw the world's attention to the fact that climate change is real, that human tragedies are taking place before our eyes and that action is urgent," Greenpeace Poland activist Katarzyna Guzek told AFP.
"Belchatow is the largest coal-fired power station in the EU, one of the largest in the world and therefore the symbol of a system that kills life on our planet."
Maciej Szczepaniuk, spokesman for Poland's PGE power group which owns the Belchatow facility in southern Poland, told AFP that the "protest action has no impact on the functioning of the plant".
Delegations from nearly 200 countries will meet in the nearby Polish coal city of Katowice for the two-week COP24 summit which opens on Sunday.
Calling Poland a "major contributor to global warming", Guzek said: "On the one hand it is organising the summit and on the other hand it is announcing its energy programme in which coal remains a staple fuel until 2060."
The UN's climate chief Patricia Espinosa insists the summit in Poland must produce a detailed programme to move the Paris climate accord forward.
World leaders have been trying to breathe new life into the 195-nation Paris Agreement amid backsliding from several nations -- most notably the United States -- over commitments made when it was signed in December 2015.
It is to take effect in 2020 and calls for limiting global warming to less than two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.
Experts warn that global warming is on track to surpass three degrees by 2100 and urge governments to do more than first planned to rein it in.
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