Planet A - Talks on Climate Change - Michał Kurtyka – Can Poland balance coal and wind in a just transition?

Michał Kurtyka – Can Poland balance coal and wind in a just transition?

12/10/20 • 31 min

In the 12th episode of Planet A, Dan Jørgensen talks with Poland’s Minister of Climate and Environment, Michał Kurtyka, about his experience as President of COP24 as well as his country’s goal to reduce coal power and build more renewable energy.

This is no small feat, considering how important coal mining is to the Polish economy.

Thus the overarching theme of this episode is the question of a “just transition” and its impact on Poland. The country has been the European heartland of coal mining for ages. When the Iron Curtain fell, more than 400.000 Poles worked in the coal industry. Today, that number is down to 80.000 people.

Kurtyka talks about the challenges to retrain coal miners for other jobs. He argues it is not a mere question of providing new opportunities, but that the strong identity of mining communities makes the transition difficult.

At the same time, Kurtyka has presented an ambitious plan to reduce coal power and deploy more renewable energy. He recently released ”PEP2040” - the plan for Poland’s energy policy to 2040 - aiming to reduce coal’s share of the country’s electricity generation from about 75% at present to 37-56% in 2030 and 11-28% by 2040.

To reach the goal, Poland will build 8 GW capacity of offshore wind energy in the Baltic Sea. Drawing on Denmark’s extensive experiences with offshore wind, the Polish government is collaborating with its Danish counterpart.

Kurtyka is a truly remarkable political figure. He started his career as a civil servant, but made the unusual transition from civil service to political office, when he was appointed as Poland’s first Minister of Climate and Environment in 2019.

Prior to becoming a Minister, he worked as Poland’s State Secretary of Energy and the President of COP24 in 2018. In this capacity, he successfully guided the conference that led to the agreement of the so-called Katowice Rulebook.

This is no small feat, considering how important coal mining is to the Polish economy.

Previous Episode

Mohamed Nasheed – Should the next COP be the last COP?

In the 11th episode of Planet A, Dan Jørgensen talks with the former Maldivian President, Mohamed Nasheed.

Mr. Nasheed managed to put his country on the map of global climate politics during his tenure as President of the Maldives (2008-12) and became one of the strongest global voices on climate action.

After being ousted in 2012, Nasheed was exiled to England where he was granted political asylum. However, two years ago, he returned to the Maldives and last year his party (The Maldives Democratic Party ) won the parliamentary election in a landslide victory. Today, he serves as the Speaker of the Maldivian Parliament.

Despite of his stature as an international luminary of the international climate negotiations, Mr. Nasheed believes that next year’s COP in Glasgow should be the last COP.

He argues that the COP-process is so constrained by its consensus-based decision-making process that it has run its course. He further contends that the general approach to climate action, based on the premise that people should give up economic development is misguided.

Mr. Nasheed reasons that the developed world simply does not have sufficient means to finance the developing countries green transition. Thus, he calls for a new approach to economics that combines high employment and GDP growth with a low carbon strategy.

During the conversation, Mr. Nasheed also call for a radically different approach to climate adaptation, that advances nature based solutions. Not only should the Maldives use natural reefs or mangrove as infrastructure to cope with rising sea levels. Mr. Nasheed also emphasizes the need to double down on “assisted evolution” and the use of genetically modified corals.

He also touches upon the Maldives ambition to become carbon neutral, the importance of public-private partnerships and the possibility of resettling the Maldivian population on artificial, floating islands.

Next Episode

Alden Meyer – Taking stock: Five years after the Paris Agreement

In the 13th episode of Planet A, we commemorate the fifth anniversary of the Paris Agreement, as Dan Jørgensen talks with Alden Meyer about the history of the international climate negotiations.

Meyer is one of the world’s most prominent advisers on climate policy and served as Director of Strategy and Policy at the Union of Concerned Scientistsfor four decades. Today he is senior associate for the climate think-tank E3G .

During the conversation, Meyer takes us through from the adoption of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in 1992 to the conclusion of the Paris Agreement in 2015.

He explains how COP15, while often described as a failure, also helped lay the groundwork for the Paris Agreement by introducing voluntary climate goals and a mechanism for ramping up national ambitions.

Furthermore, Meyer discusses the numerous conflicts throughout the negotiation between the developed and the developing countries as well as between fossil fuel companies and NGOs.

Meyer argues that the world is “moving in the right direction, but not fast enough”. Yet, he remains an optimist due to the surge of climate activism from young people around the globe and the increasing climate action from sub-national actors such as cities and states.