Poland for Environment

Poland’s economy has been based in heavy industry and the country’s environment has suffered for that. Now everything is changing after the collapse of communist regime in 1989 and becoming a member of European union.

In the past Poland's communist government disregarded the environment, and the push to develop the country's heavy industries meant that Poland was one of the most polluted countries in Europe. Along with parts of northern Bohemia and eastern Germany, the environmental devastation in southern Poland earned the region the infamous nickname, "The Black Triangle."

Change in environmental policy

Poland has made great progress in improving its environmental record. Poland's economic "shock therapy" closed down many inefficient, polluting factories, and new policies promoting environmental protection and energy efficiency have been introduced. As a result, industrial and agricultural discharges in Poland have been more than halved, and major air pollutant emissions have been significantly reduced.

Much of the country's obsolete and inefficient power plants have been retrofitted with pollution prevention equipment in order to cut down on sulfur dioxide emissions. Regulations and legislation governing oil and gas development, as well as coal mining, have been upgraded to include better environmental protection measures. Nevertheless, there is still much room for improvement.

Environmental protection in local governments

An important role in environmental protection is played by individual, local-government and social initiatives. The stimulation of those initiatives by environmental education is already visible. In the recent years we can find a lot of examples bearing out the relationships between sounds information on the environment with the active ecological education and increase of people's awareness on the changes taking place in nature and on the role of each individual in forming our environment. Without the increase of that awareness all efforts of environment protection administration and ecological movements will be spoiled by people's unconcern.

Expectation for the future

Poland will need money in order to "catch up" with Western European countries in terms of environmental protection. Currently, Poland spends about half of the EU member state average for environmental outlays in its annual budget. The EU is expected to provide some 6 billion euros for ecological investments in the first three years of Poland's EU membership, but beyond that Poland will have to boost its environmental spending.

Renewable energy sources should provide the incentive for Poland to reduce its coal usage. A shift is already underway in Poland from coal mining and heavy industry to modern services and lighter, more precise branches of production, such as car manufacturing, which should help ease pollution from stationary sources even further. In addition, the Polish government has begun implementing policies geared to change the country's energy consumption patterns to become more sustainable. Nevertheless, continued improvement of the country's environmental health will depend on Polish citizens acting on a local level to change individual patterns of energy consumption.

13.7.2005 Karolina Mazur, Poland