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Comment by fuoqi | Hacker News Reader

I find it mildly amusing how for all green talk and net zero pledges, EU bureaucrats and wide public does not give much notice to the third-world-level dirty-as-hell coal-powered generation in Poland.

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They do - Poland agreed to the same decarbonization targets and participation in the carbon market as the rest of the EU so it had to implement policies supporting them - chiefly in the form a solar power subsidy program.

The program was more successful than the government anticipated and capacity ballooned so much that the grid needs modernization if it's to support more renewables.

Also electricity usage per capita per year is like 25% lower than say in Germany or France, so emissions in absolute terms are lower than they might appear.

There's a long way to go, but the country is on track to meet the goals set - partly because it's actually cheaper that way.

The EU has a cap and trade system ("EU ETS") for large industrial installations. So as far as I understand, the Poland coal plants are not invisible to the EU. They pay a market price for each ton of CO2 emitted.

https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/headlines/society/201...

Poland does try to cancel out the price signal sent by the EU ETS with billions of subsidies. I guess that's part of the reason why they emit so much. But the emission cap still holds; if Poland pays for the right to emit a ton of CO2, then that ton cannot be emitted elsewhere in the EU.

https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/es/ip_22_...

Unlike most of Europe they have very poor starting point with minimal hydroelectric power resources etc which makes things look relatively worse. However their current progress if you look at the graphs is still fast paced.

“In September 2020, the government and mining unions agreed a plan to phase out coal by 2049 which coincides with 100th anniversary of Karol Wojtyła being assigned to st. Florian's parish in Kraków,[10][11] with coal used in power generation falling to negligible levels in 2032“ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_Poland

I read your sentences three times and I don't get what exactly you're trying to criticize here or what you're raving at?

"All the green talk" is precisely about getting rid of coal-powered generation in Poland (and other EU states), so what the heck is your complaint here?

It sounds like to me that the complaint is why Poland hasn’t switched to green power already. A comment like that demonstrates a lack of understanding about the levels of effort to make such a change, as if the change to green power is as instantaneous and painless as flicking a switch (pun half intended).

Poland has lower per capita CO2 emissions then germany. The map is per kilowatt, not per capita, so poland looks worse there.

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