‘At the beginning of this decade, the narrative that focused on the costs and risks of emission reduction prevailed in the Polish public debate, lacking, however, the assessment of the potential benefits of climate policy’, comment Maciej Bukowski and Aleksander Śniegocki, the co-authors of ‘The prospects for transition to a low-carbon economy in Poland’ published by the editorial board of Pol-Int.
The project ‘Low-emission Poland 2050’ was intended to fill that gap. The experts from two independent think tanks – the Institute for Sustainable Development (ISD) and the Warsaw Institute for Economic Studies (now: WiseEuropa) – undertook the preparation of an in-depth assessment of the current state of the Polish economy, proposed the scenarios for reducing the emission in the long term, as well as assessed the socio-economic implications of the proposed action for Poland. This article presents the key findings of the project completed in 2014, supplemented by the information on the approach to a low-carbon transformation in Poland in the coming years. The full results of the project (including a final report and the downloadable data employed in it) are available in Polish and English versions on the website www.np2050.pl.
For years, the Polish authorities has remained skeptical towards the ambitious climate policy of the European Union. The successive governments reiterate similar arguments against the low-carbon transformation of Polish economy: the high costs of emission reductions, the low income of citizens compared to Western Europe countries, decarbonization not being interlinked with the local development priorities, consequently diminishing the competitiveness of domestic coal mining (which is considered to be the foundation of Poland’s energy security), as well as the European Union’s inability to effectively carry out a climate policy without equally ambitious actions on a global scale. The last 25 years were for Poland a period of transition from an ineffective, centrally planned economy to a market model, European integration and competing on a globalized market for goods, services and capital.
Despite the difficulties and the costs of the social transformation, during this period Poland succeeded in maintaining the economic growth, which allowed for shortening the development distance from the Western Europe. A crucial role in this process was played by the modernization of the industry: phasing out ineffective heavy industry plants, investing in machinery for the other plants and developing new branches of industrial processing, which produce both for the expanding domestic market, as well as for export to the other Member States. According to Eurostat, GDP per capita in PPPs stands now in Poland at 69% of the EU average, whereas in 2004 it amounted to mere 49% and in 1990 – approx. 33%.
For several years, one of the central elements of the public debate in Poland has been the risk of falling into the, so-called, ‘middle income trap’, i.e. the inhibition of economic growth in the following decades, resulting in the consolidation of the gap between Poland and development leaders (North-Western Europe and the USA). The first publication on the Polish market that raised the issue of this threat was the report: ‘2050.pl – the journey to the low-emission future’. It stresses that the risk of falling into the trap of average income derives from the exhaustion of simple resources, which stimulated growth in the previous two decades, i.e. copying the best foreign practices, cross-sectoral reallocation, removing inefficiencies that were a legacy from Polish People’s Republic, incorporating numerous Polish companies into European and global value chains and employing vast resources of relatively well educated and cheap labor. Maintaining a high rate of growth until 2030 and beyond will require Poland to mobilize new development engines: innovation economy, more efficient use of labor resources, which are diminishing as a result of demographic decline, as well as improving the quality of legislation and public institutions’ practices to ensure stable conditions to conduct business activity. These conclusions, published in 2013 in the ‘2050.pl’ report, perfectly fit with the assumptions of ‘The Plan for Responsible Development’ that was presented by the Polish government at the beginning of 2016.
The text above in an excerpt from ‘The prospects for transition to a low-carbon economy in Poland’, published by the editorial board of Pol-Int. We invite you to read the whole article [available in PL].
Among the authors of the article are: Dr Maciej Bukowski, the President of WiseEuropa, Dr Andrzej Kassenberg, the President of Institute for Sustainable Development, Aleksander Śniegocki, Project Manager of ‘Energy and Climate’ in WiseEuropa
