CLEW Guide – Poland stumbles through energy transition with uneven progress and political headwind
Contents
With its “CLEW Guide” series, the Clean Energy Wire newsroom and contributors from across Europe are providing journalists with a bird's-eye view of the climate-friendly transition from key countries and the bloc as a whole. You can also sign up to the weekly newsletter here to receive our "Dispatch from..." – weekly updates from Germany, France, Italy, Croatia, Poland and the EU on the need-to-know about the continent’s move to climate neutrality.
(With contributions by Wojciech Jakóbik)
Key background
- Over the past 35 years, Poland has risen from a developing, post-communist state to one of Europe's strongest economies, with deep integration into NATO and the European Union. For years, domestic coal resources provided cheap and reliable energy. But that, together with a coal industry strengthened by the labour unions, slowed the transition to other sources of electricity.
Today, the cost of extraction makes domestic coal more expensive than imports, and the government is subsidising mines with billions of zlotys each year. At the same time, the cost of the EU’s emission trading scheme (ETS) adds to electricity bills, which burdens the economy as Poland has the highest carbon intensity in the EU. In recent years, however, Poland lowered the share of coal in its electricity mix, from over 80 percent in 2018 to 52.8 percent in 2025.
- Poland was responsible for just over 11 percent of the EU’s total greenhouse gas emissions in 2024, a slightly higher share than in 2023. Emissions in the country have fallen by more than 30 percent since peaking in the 1980s. Most of the reductions occurred in the 1990s during the fall of communism and the shift away from an industry-heavy planned economy. Under its newly adopted National Energy and Climate Plan, Poland aims to reduce economy-wide greenhouse gas emissions by 43 percent by 2030 compared with 1990 levels, including emissions removals from land use and forestry (LULUCF). However, by 2023, emissions had only fallen by 25 percent.
- The current government led by prime minister Donald Tusk consists of a broad coalition from centre left to centre right. It took power in 2023 after defeating the right-wing Law and Justice (PiS) and promised a faster energy transition. However, in the just over two years since taking power, it has been slow in delivering key legislation. Their efforts were further hindered when PiS-backed Karol Nawrocki won the presidential election in 2025. As president, the right-wing former historian has the power to veto any bill, a power he has so far used more often at a much higher rate than any of his predecessors. Nawrocki, a newcomer in politics, strongly opposes the EU Green Deal.
Poland faces various ecological issues, some connected to fossil fuels and climate change. Both droughts and floods have intensified in recent years. Air pollution is a major public health concern, fuelled by both cars and furnaces, as no other EU country uses nearly as much coal for heating.
Major transition stories
- Uneven energy transition. Poland has managed to significantly reduce the share of coal in electricity production in the last decade, but the buildup of other sources of energy has not been balanced. The slow, but steady development of onshore wind farms came to a halt in 2016, due to legislative changes. Solar power played no role until around 2020, when a boom in photovoltaics started and development quickly outpaced onshore wind. This has led to overproduction of electricity on sunny summer days, while insufficient onshore wind capacity has left the country more reliant on coal during winter season. In July 2026, Poland started producing offshore electricity for the first time in its history.
- Strategy finally updated. Poland has finally adopted its updated National Energy and Climate Plan (NECP), laying out national strategies and targets. Poland is the last EU country to do so, after years of delays that prompted the European Commission to launch legal action against Warsaw. Despite the new NECP, Poland remains the only EU country without an official coal phase-out date.
Political divide over climate and energy transition. Centre-right and far-right parties in Poland have been highly critical of EU climate policy (sometimes dipping into climate denialism), while centrists, liberals, and the left propose a faster energy transition and more environmental protection. One of the few issues that enjoys political consensus is developing nuclear energy.
- Just transition plans have been drawn up for coal regions, but not all of them will receive EU funding. Eastern Wielkopolska, which has just one remaining lignite plant, has been fairly successful in implementing a just transition. However, other coal regions have more workers in the sector. In the town of Bełchatów, the largest lignite mine and power plant in Europe dominates the local economy – and its closure will pose a great challenge. The lignite mine in the Turów region was not approved for support, as coal extraction is planned to continue until 2044. In 2025, a bill that facilitates the closure of a number of coal mines and introduces compensation for miners was adopted. In 2026 alone, it may lead to a reduction of employment in mining sector by up to 5,000 people. In October 2025, the Polish government approved a draft bill that facilitates coal mine closures and introduces compensation for miners. It was signed into law by the president in December 2025.
Getting rid of Russian fossil fuels. Poland has managed to diversify its gas, oil, and coal supplies after heavily relying on imports from Russia. Gas imports – which are set to increase with new gas power plants being built – come mainly through the LNG terminal in Świnoujście (with gas from the USA, Qatar, and others) and via the Baltic Pipe gas pipeline from Norway.
Polish smog. Poland has struggled with improving its bad air quality. Smog is causing around 40,000 premature deaths each year. In 2024 and 2025, air quality worsened instead of improving for the first time in years. Only Warsaw and Kraków have implemented low-emission zones, and the share of electric vehicles remains far behind Western Europe. The "Clean Air" programme with subsidies for replacing old coal furnaces has proved ineffective in 2025. Implementation of the EU’s new emissions trading scheme (ETS 2) is a major concern, as it will put a heavy financial burden on some of the poorest households that are still using coal for heating.
Going nuclear. According to government plans, Poland is to build two nuclear power plants with a total installed capacity of 6 to 9 gigawatts. Previous attempts to build nuclear reactors, going as far back as the 1970s, have not been successful. The current project for the first plant, with the US firm Westinghouse as a technological partner, is at the advanced planning stages and construction on the Baltic coast is expected to start in 2028. While 2033 was the original planned opening date, 2036 at the earliest now seems more realistic. Polish state oil company Orlen is planning to build two Small Modular Reactor (SMR) units by 2035.
Hi-speed ambitions. Poland has plans to develop a high-speed rail network as part of the Centralny Port Komunikacyjny (CPK) project, along with a big airport located between Warsaw and Łódź. It will also include Local Mobility Hubs (LMHs), serving as multi-use railway stations. The first high-speed trains should start operation in the early 2030s.
Battery powerhouse. In April 2023, Poland overtook the US as the country with the second largest lithium-ion battery production capacity in the world. According to a 2025 report by New AutoMotive, “Poland has become one of Europe’s most important battery manufacturing centres” in terms of both production and recycling. However, “challenges remain” if it is to keep that position.
Sector overview
Energy
- Responsible for 44.9 percent of Poland's total GHG emissions in 2024 (46.9% in 2023 and 51.1% in 2022).
In 2025, coal was the main source of electricity (52.8 percent). It remained the largest proportion by far in the EU, despite the significant drop from 70 percent in 2022. Wind and solar’s joint share rose to 25.4 percent, and renewables in total reached almost 31.2 percent.
- The country’s energy sector is dominated by large, state-owned or partially state-owned companies, like the oil corporation Orlen or Polska Grupa Energetyczna (PGE), an energy company that owns coal plants and mines. The lignite plant PGE Bełchatów is the EU's highest emitting power plant, but now it has a plan to gradually close down by 2036 (with a 77% reduction until 2030).
- Poland plans a gradual coal phase-out, replacing it with a mix of renewables and nuclear generation. New fossil gas plants are set to be built too, but some plans have been revised after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
- In June 2026, after two years of delays, Poland adopted the National Energy and Climate Plan (NECP) with the following targets: 65.6–68.9 percent of renewables in electricity generation and no more than around 5 percent of power from coal by 2040.
- According to electric grid operator Polskie Sieci Elektroenergetyczne, the operational capacity of photovoltaic panels and wind farms reached a combined output of 34 GW in June 2025, of which around 23 GW are solar PV.
Industry
- Responsible for 14.7 percent of total GHG emissions in 2024 (14.6% in 2023 and 14.8% in 2021).
- Over 21 percent of the total workforce is employed in the industrial sector.
- Energy intensity of industry (per GDP unit) is above the EU average, but companies are increasingly looking to improve efficiency and use zero-carbon energy, both in the form of renewables and small nuclear reactors.
- CO2-intensive industries in Poland are comprised of both private domestic, international companies (like ArcelorMittal), and partially state-owned companies (like Orlen and Grupa Azoty). The sectors of Polish industry which emit most CO2 are cement, oil and coke as well as chemicals and fertiliser production.
- Since 2022, energy-intensive industries have struggled with big increases in electricity and gas prices. The high carbon intensity of the power sector is not only driving up prices, but also increasingly threatening business as more and more clients are looking not just at price, but also at the carbon footprint.
- The industrial sector is increasingly looking to invest in its own sources of electricity, from renewables to batteries, and even small modular reactors (SMRs).
Buildings and construction
- Responsible for 10.9 percent of total GHG emissions in 2024 (11.5% in 2023).
- Solid fuels (coal, wood) and district heating (mainly coal plants) dominate in the heating sector, but gas boiler use has increased markedly in recent years, now heating one quarter of all buildings (according to incomplete government data).
- The energy crisis led to a boom in heat-pump sales, but that proved temporary. With elevated electricity prices, biomass (in particular wood pellet) boilers have become a more popular replacement for old coal furnaces.
- Until recently, Poles accounted for as much as 87 percent of the total amount of coal burned by EU households.
- Almost two-thirds of buildings in Poland are characterised by low energy efficiency.
- The current government targets are: phase-out coal in city homes by 2030 and outside cities by 2040, with all heating covered by “low emission sources” or district heating by 2040 (experts point out that this could be achieved much sooner). The building renovation strategy sets a target of renovating and insulating 236,000 buildings per year between 2020-2030, with numbers increasing in the coming decades.
- Polish cities have some of the worst air quality levels in Europe with buildings (mainly solid fuels furnaces) being the biggest contributor to fine particulate pollution.
- Over 40 billion PLN (€9.4 billion) were contracted for household heating source replacement as part of the government's “Clean Air”. The programme was suspended in November 2024 citing “irregularities” and relaunched at the end of March 2025. But the first months of the new version show that it has lost much of its popularity due to cases of fraud and what NGOs characterise as government mismanagement.
Mobility
- Domestic transport was responsible for 22.1 percent of total GHG emissions in 2024 (21.6% in 2023) and is the only sector that saw an emissions increase between 1990 and 2024.
- In 2019, the government adopted the Sustainable Transport Development Strategy until 2030. It assumes an eight percent rise in CO2 emissions from transport by 2030 (compared to 2017) and has no specific target for a number of electric vehicles (EVs) on Poland’s roads. In a draft update to Poland’s National Energy and Climate Plan (NECP), the government led by prime minister Donald Tusk concluded that it would be “impossible” for Poland to meet the EU’s target of 29 percent of renewable share in the transport sector – it projects a 17.7 percent share by 2030.
- As of June 2026, Poland had 292,472 electric cars on the roads, including 142,130 BEVs and 150,342 plug-in hybrids. The country has just over 13,200 charging points. According to Eurostat data, in 2023, Poland had the EU’s lowest share of fully electric cars. In 2025, registrations of new electric vehicles in Poland, however, accelerated after the introduction of new state subsidies, resulting in one of the fastest growth rates in Europe in August.
- Poland is the EU’s leader in road freight, but the industry could be left out from the European market without a transition to zero-emission trucks.
- Poland is Europe's biggest producer of lithium-ion batteries, and second-largest in the world (after China).
Agriculture
- Responsible for 10.8 percent of total GHG emissions in 2024 (10.9% in 2023 and 9.5% in 2021), mostly in the form of nitrous oxide and methane (caused in around equal parts (around 40% percent each) by soil-related emissions and direct livestock emissions).
- Under its newly adopted National Energy and Climate Plan (NECP), Poland aims to reduce agricultural emissions by 33–35 percent by 2030 compared with 1990 levels. By 2023, emissions from the sector had already fallen by just over 30 percent. The government sees biogas as an important route to the development of a circular economy in rural areas and providing low-carbon energy.
- The government sees biogas as an important route to the development of a circular economy in rural areas and providing low-carbon energy.
- The effects of climate change, especially drought, are already impacting Polish agriculture.
Land use, land-use change and forestry (LULUCF)
- Forests and other areas remain a net carbon sink and removed 24.6 million tonnes of CO2 equivalents in 2024 (corresponding to 7.8 percent of total emissions). That is a substantial decrease from 2023, when they absorbed 32.7 million tonnes of CO2 equivalents (accounting for 10.3 percent of total emissions).
- Around 30 percent of Poland is covered by forest (a number similar to countries like France or Germany), around 80 percent of which are state owned and managed by the State Forests National Forest Holding company. In 2023, State Forest had a record income of 11.2 billion PLN (~€2.6 bln) from timber sales. In recent years, the company has come under criticism from NGOs and private citizens for a number of issues, from lack of transparency to logging in old-growth forests. The Tusk government is working on reforming the institution and protecting 20 percent of forest.
- The level of CO2 removal capacity by forests has been decreasing over the last decade, with a sharp fall in recent years (from over 40 million tonnes to just over 20 million tonnes). According to Poland's emissions report, the main reasons are due to the long-term effects of disasters like long-term drought and storms with strong wind causing trees to fall. Timber harvesting is also on the rise.
- The former United Right coalition government has been pointing to forest sequestration as a climate solution, including during COP24 in Poland, but sequestration levels have been falling and, in 2021, it amounted to only 52 percent of Poland’s target for 2030. A solution proposed by the State Forestry organisation to counter this problem has had a marginal effect.
- In one of the first decisions of Tusk’s climate ministry, logging was temporarily halted or at least reduced in 1.3 percent of state-managed forests. The locations were chosen for environmental and social significance. The coalition government has promised to increase protection of 20 percent of the public forests by the next election in 2027.
- The ruling coalition also wants to create new national parks, which Poland hasn’t done in over two decades, as well as expand existing ones. It notes national parks cover only 1.1 percent of Poland’s land area, compared to an EU average of 3.7 percent. It’s efforts to create the Lower Oder Valley National Park along the border with Germany, however, were blocked by the opposition-aligned president Karol Nawrocki, who argued that the park would “block the economic development of the region”.
Find an interviewee
Find an interviewee from Poland in the CLEW expert database. The list includes researchers, politicians, government agencies, NGOs and businesses with expertise in various areas of the transition to climate neutrality from across Europe.
Get in touch
As a Berlin-based energy and climate news service, we at CLEW have a 10-year track record of supporting high-quality journalism on Germany’s energy transition and Europe’s move to climate neutrality. For support on your next story, get in touch with our team of journalists.
Tips and tricks
- CLEW’s Easy Guide to Germany’s transition with background information and links to key energy and climate data.