{"id":3205,"date":"2018-10-09T16:13:47","date_gmt":"2018-10-09T14:13:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/euracoal.eu\/?p=3205"},"modified":"2018-10-09T16:13:47","modified_gmt":"2018-10-09T14:13:47","slug":"the-social-pre_cop24","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pipe.euracoal.biz\/?p=3205","title":{"rendered":"The Social Pre_COP24"},"content":{"rendered":"
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L-R: Mr. Grzegorz Tobiszowski, Secretary of State and Government Plenipotentiary for the restructuring of hard coal mining in Poland; MEP Jadwiga Wi\u015bniewska (ECR, PL); and Kazimierz Grajcarek, Solidarno\u015b\u0107 at the European Parliament, Brussels, 9 October 2018<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Presentation by EURACOAL President, Mr. Tomasz Rogala (click to download)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

On 9 October at the European Parliament in Brussels, MEP Jadwiga Wi\u015bniewska hosted trade unionists, industrialists and Secretary of State Tobiszowski for a conference on the Polish way to a clean environment. This aims to replace the concept of \u201cdecarbonisation\u201d with one of \u201cclimate neutrality\u201d whereby CO2<\/sub> emissions are balanced by CO2<\/sub> absorption in forests. EURACOAL was represented by President, Tomasz Rogala at this sequel to an earlier event in Katowice, Poland. He spoke on the climate challenge, balanced by the need to maintain energy security and economic competitiveness in the European Union.<\/p>\n

Bringing together the mining trade union Solidarno\u015b\u0107, OPZZ (All-Poland Alliance of Trade Unions) and the Trade Union Forum (FZZ) with professionals from SITG (Association of Mining Engineers and Technicians), the think-tank G\u00f3rnictwo OK (Mining OK) and coal mining companies, the conference aimed to influence the Parliament position in the lead up to the UN COP24 climate conference in Katowice.<\/p>\n

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L-R: Mr. Tomasz Rogala, EURACOAL President and Chairman of the Board, Polska Grupa G\u00f3rnicza S.A.; Mr. Grzegorz Tobiszowski, Secretary of State and Government Plenipotentiary for the restructuring of hard coal mining in Poland; MEP Jadwiga Wi\u015bniewska (ECR, PL) at the European Parliament, Brussels, 9 October 2018<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Speakers called for a serious reflection on climate policy and its impact on future generations. Grzegorz Tobiszowski, Secretary of State in the Polish Ministry of Energy, said that,<\/p>\n

\u201cWe should put more emphasis on the primacy of economic competitiveness and the development of modern, clean coal technologies, because we in Europe are slowly losing our leading position.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

He spoke on the need of a common, global effort on climate, which he felt was lacking after the US withdrawal from the Paris Agreement and Canada\u2019s withdrawal from the Kyoto Protocol back in 2011.<\/p>\n

MEP Wi\u015bniewska described the Paris Agreements as \u201ca climate constitution for the globe\u201d, but as with any piece of legislation, it can only work if fully implemented with verified efforts by all countries. A current resolution of the Parliament calls for a \u201czero-emission\u201d EU economy by 2050 which she saw as too restrictive. Given the negative perception of those that do not fully support such ambitious climate goals, her decision not to sign the resolution was a political risk.<\/p>\n

Solidarno\u015b\u0107 leader, Kazimierz Grajcarek, explained that the trade unions do not act \u201cagainst\u201d anything, adding that,<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to live in a clean environment. The problem is that when speaking about the climate, people and science are very rarely mentioned.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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Prof. Adam Gierek MEP (S&D, PL) at the European Parliament, Brussels, 9 October 2018<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

From the University of Economics in Katowice, Dr. Magdalena W\u00f3jcik-Jurkiewicz presented a study on the cost of energy transition in Silesia. With a new job requiring an average of PLN 1.2 million (\u20ac280 000), the cost of replacing 200 000 lost jobs in mining would reach around PLN 200 billion or \u20ac50 billion. Dr Pawe\u0142 Bogacz of the AGH University of Science and Technology, representing the \u201cMining OK\u201d initiative, spoke about the impossibility of using only renewables during the energy transition; energy security demanded reliable sources such as coal which also happens to contribute to the national economy.<\/p>\n

The event was well attended with numerous MEPs including: Vice-President Zdzis\u0142aw Krasnod\u0119bski; the Former Polish Minister of Foreign Affairs, Anna Fotyga; Ryszard Legutko; Czes\u0142aw Hoc; Urszula Krupa; and Prof. Adam Gierek from the Committee on Industry, Research and Energy.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
English<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"\"<\/a>
Polish<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A common statement by the Polish trade unions on the costs and benefits of climate policies was published alongside the events in Katowice and Brussels (click images to download in Polish or English). The unions call for a full assessment of all climate-related policies to date in terms of ecological effects and socio-economic impacts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On 9 October at the European Parliament in Brussels, MEP Jadwiga Wi\u015bniewska hosted trade unionists, industrialists and Secretary of State Tobiszowski for a conference on the Polish way to a clean environment. This aims to replace the concept of \u201cdecarbonisation\u201d with one of \u201cclimate neutrality\u201d whereby CO2 emissions are balanced by CO2 absorption in forests. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3206,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3205","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-whats-new"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pipe.euracoal.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3205","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pipe.euracoal.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pipe.euracoal.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pipe.euracoal.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pipe.euracoal.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3205"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pipe.euracoal.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3205\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pipe.euracoal.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3206"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pipe.euracoal.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3205"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pipe.euracoal.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3205"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pipe.euracoal.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3205"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}