Why Poland is biting the hand that feeds it

Rather than resisting tougher emissions trading, Poland should set an example to the world – by becoming a less rich nation selling carbon credits and benefiting its economy

Bryony Worthington
guardian.co.uk, Monday December 8 2008 11.46 GMT

The spotlight of the world's climate change media will fall on the Polish town of Poznan this week as ministers gather for the UN climate change convention.
But at the same time as Poland is hosting this important meeting, heads of state will be meeting in Brussels to hammer out the EU energy and climate package – a critically important negotiation that has been seriously undermined by Polish complaints that the package is potentially too damaging to its economy. (Indeed, Poznan itself, as the fourth largest industrial centre in Poland, is home to many of the industrial lobbyists who have helped to fuel such concerns.)
The meeting in Brussels is arguably the more important of the two events. Europe has contributed more to the global climate problem than any other party represented at the negotiations, so the world will be watching very carefully. A weak deal there could have a much greater impact on next year's all-important UN summit in Copenhagen than the detailed discussions going on in Poznan.
Poland's unhelpful position is not hard to understand. Reliant on coal for 95% of its energy, the nation's carbon footprint is substantial. And as a result of acceding to the European Union in 2004, the country is now officially treated as a developed country and so has emissions targets to meet.
However, there is no evidence that Poland has suffered any negative effects from being subject to targets – nor any evidence that it need suffer in the future. Europe's main climate change policy – the emissions trading scheme (ETS), which covers half of the region's emissions – delivered Poland a generous amount of money in its first phase.
Polish companies were allocated around 90m tonnes' worth of carbon dioxide permits over and above what they actually needed. Roughly half of these were sold to other members of the EU – principally the UK, Spain and Italy – raising around €200m in income. It is likely that the same thing will happen in the current phase, which lasts until 2012, though until Poland's national allocation plan is approved or published, we won't know for sure.
In the negotiations about the future of the ETS the EU has already included important concessions that remove permits from richer European states and donate them to the accession countries. But Poland is insisting on more – despite the fact that, according to a recent news report, the country is seeking to sell up to €1bn worth of permits to other countries unable to meet their own targets.
Instead of embracing the trading schemes that it has profited from, Poland appears to be set on weakening them, and this is threatening to undermine the position of the EU internationally. Paradoxically, though, if the country is successful and emissions trading fails, civil society will almost certainly begin calling for it to be scrapped and replaced with more robust and (for Poland) much less profitable alternatives.
The problem lies in the fact that Poland's government, like those of many other countries, believes its role is to defend and preserve the status quo rather than manage a process of change. If global emissions are to peak and decline within a decade – as the scientists say they must – then a massive investment in a new energy infrastructure is necessary. This investment will generate jobs and economic growth but it will flow to non-traditional energy technologies and solutions; those profiting from the existing system will be required to adapt and governments need to help them to change.
Fortunately, the ETS provides a way of raising huge sums of money to pay for that change: the auctioning of permits. This will push up energy prices but if the money raised is invested in solutions then it insulates against future high costs.
If only Poland's prime minister, Donald Tusk, could take a leaf out of Barack Obama's book and adopt a positive attitude to change, he might then see why backing a strong ETS makes sense: a robust scheme will give a higher price of carbon and result in more money flowing into his economy from the West. Trading schemes offer the least painful way possible for Poland to leapfrog into a clean energy system, delivering numerous co-benefits in terms of health, air quality and job creation. He should be backing them all the way, both in Poznan and in Brussels.
If he did this, Poland could be an example to the rest of the world – a less rich nation which is party to an international emissions reduction scheme that is actually benefiting its economy. This would be a hugely valuable contribution towards securing the global deal that the world so badly needs.
• Bryony Worthington is the founder of the website Sandbag, a not-for-profit website that allows its members to buy up carbon emissions trading permits