Links tagged “poland”

Time Mag Great Reset issue: "At first, Poland rejected the plan’s ambitions. President Andrzej Duda had promised to save the coal industry and its jobs—part of a controversial populist appeal to national identity and heritage. “As long as I am the President,” he said in 2018, “I won’t allow for anyone to murder Polish mining.” For months, Duda’s government opposed the bloc’s 2050 carbon-neutrality target, the only E.U. country to do so."

Then the coronavirus pandemic hit. Rather than slow down the process, leaders in Brussels saw an opportunity to expedite their plans. The E.U. Commission—the bloc’s executive body—promised to pour hundreds of billions of euros into the economy in response to the virus and the subsequent lockdowns that halted economies across the Continent. A quarter of the €750 billion recovery plan would be directed toward low-carbon investments; the remainder of the funds came with a 'do no harm' provision, meaning the investment shouldn’t be used on projects that harm the environment. And, to keep up the momentum, E.U. leadership promised to spend that proportion of the bloc’s budget on green measures over the next seven years.

Polish leaders in Warsaw faced a conundrum: the government remained rhetorically committed to coal, but the economics had become increasingly difficult. Until the coronavirus plunged the world into global recession, Poland had experienced three decades of sustained economic expansion. But the country would need to rethink its economy to return to growth. As electricity demand plummeted, caused by the pandemic and subsequent lockdowns, coal mines shuttered with difficult economic headwinds anticipated ahead even when the pandemic eases. And leaders in Brussels demanded that the country commit to net zero to be eligible for all of its allocated money under the Just Transition program. So, slowly, Poland changed its tone. In late July, after months of foot dragging, Polish leaders signed on to the package."

Former Obama UN climate envoy Todd Stern: "A perception floats in public that under President Trump the US has stepped out of the Paris Agreement. But, at [the] Katowice, [Poland UN climate summit] we find that the US is as deeply engaged at the moment in several negotiations behind closed doors."

Another prominent climate activist not worried that the U.S. will actually withdraw is former Vice President Al Gore. See: Gore not worried about Trump’s UN Paris exit: No exit until after 2020 election – ‘A new president could simply give 30 days’ notice, and we’re right back in’

“What bothers me about this topic is just how accepted this is to the public,” Walt Cunningham said. “They just believe what they are told by public officials and they don’t realize that if you look at the data it shows there are hundreds of different factors that contribute to temperature.”

“The green vision of the U.N. is one of a planet that is about to be burned up and destroyed,” CFACT's Craig Rucker said. “They view the world as finite pie one where every piece that is eaten leaves one less for another person down the road.”

Morano warned audience members that the U.N. is not interested in sound science and it is pushing a policy agenda that is detrimental to average people.“CO ₂ is not the control knob for climate, and we’ve had higher CO ₂ levels in the past,” Morano said. “The U.N. will say that it draws from top scientists, but the U.N. climate panel is really a political body posing as a scientific institution. What they really care about is controlling people.”