Coal provides 95% of Poland’s energy needs, and has increasingly made up Poland’s energy mix.
While Poland’s Environment Minister noted that Poland has reduce its carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions by 30%, its national product has risen more than 100% in that same time.
But Poland is one of the top 10 producers of Carbon Dioxide (CO2) and 7000 tons of coal are mined daily according to Al Jazeera. This has pitted environmentalists like Greenpeace against the coal industry. Greenpeace demands 15% from renewables in 2020. The benefits, they reason, are to to show the possibility for Emerging markets like Poland to set examples for China and India.
Another potential benefit is to allow Poland to be less resistant on heavy emitting forms of energy and to diversify away from Russian energy supplies, a hot topic in national security circles.
