Reference no: EM131355333

150 words please provide references

Has Poland put together a strategy on sustainable development that addresses specifically the challenges you mentioned as well as to meet EU targets?

Question originated from :

 Poland's environmental situation has improved significantly since switching from a communist government to a democratic government in the 90's.  The communist government placed an emphasis on heavy industry which included a significant overexploitation of the forests and a loss of 1.6million hectares of forestland.  Poland remains one of the most material and energy consuming economies in Europe.  Its main source of economy is mining, quarrying and manufacturing (cia.gov 2016). 

While Poland has worked in many sectors of sustainable development and made significant improvements since the communist days, it has failed to reform its air pollution problem.  Poland has the worst air quality of all the European Union members.  The pollution in Poland causes around 43,000 premature deaths a year, but the government has yet to make any progress to fossil fuel reform.  Of the reforms that Poland has made for emissions, they have been largely low-stack emissions, or emissions coming from households and cars.  They have failed to make any meaningful reforms around high-stack emissions, primarily coal burning power plants.  90% of the country's energy comes from coal, so it is unlikely to see any real reform (Boren 2015).  Instead, Poland has taken to cracking down on household emissions and ignoring the coal plants.  Recently, Poland started a drone program to fly over households and measure pollution.  Many homes in the mountains ignore pollution rules and burn dirty coal and sometimes garbage, in order to heat their homes during the winter.  These drones would transmit the data to authorities in order to conduct home inspections and enforce pollution rules (presstv.com 2016). 

Both sides of the Polish government are working together in order to opt-out of the EU's climate targets.  With both major political parties on the same page, it's unlikely to see any reform to this serious issue that affects not only the immediate environment, but also has long term effects on the ecosystems in Poland.  Poland has worked hard in the last two decades for sustainable progress in sectors like clean water, protecting forests and wildlife, and other sustainable developments, but has intentionally ignored its primary source of energy, coal burning.  With air quality not improving and the government trying to get out of any commitment to change how it creates energy, while simultaneously cracking down on its household pollution, it's hard to say if Poland will ever get their pollution priorities straight.

Here's a link to the video on the pollution drones!

https://www.presstv.com/Detail/2016/12/10/497292/Poland-use-drones-tackle-air-pollution/

References

Boren, Zachary Davies. Poland's Smog Crisis. June 25, 2015. https://energydesk.greenpeace.org/2015/06/25/polands-smog-crisis-europes-most-polluted-country-in-trouble-with-the-eu-but-wont-cut-coal-emissions/ (accessed January 3, 2017).

cia.gov. World Factbook. 2016. https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/pl.html (accessed January 3, 2017).

presstv.com. Poland Uses Drones to Tackle Air Pollution. December 10, 2016. https://www.presstv.com/Detail/2016/12/10/497292/Poland-use-drones-tackle-air-pollution/ (accessed January 3, 2017).