Cooling towers can be seen in every direction from Katowice, the regional capital of Silesia, Poland’s coal country, trailing smoke along the skyline. Miners peer down from billboards. Coal, of which there is an abundance in Poland, is stamped on the country’s cultural identity, the legacy of an energy policy that is as much about a national sense of independence as it is about providing power. While the rest of Europe has spent much of the last decade cutting off its coal habit, Poland has held out, still relying on coal to provide 74 per cent of the country’s electricity. It now has the highest coal use in Europe, overtaking Germany in production for the first time this summer. That is a problem for the European Union’s bold green plans. Poland is the only EU country to refuse to sign up to a legally binding target to reach net zero emissions (as much carbon sucked up as emitted) by 2050, rejecting such calls as an unfair attack on its growing economic prosperity. “As children, we are taught that coal is our treasure, our economy is paid with coal and it is the core of our independence,” says Joanna Maćkowiak Pandera, the CEO of think tank Forum Energii. “When it comes to the energy strategy, people are very emotional.”
