No Climate Aid Can Go to Polish Coal - the Inevitable Has Happened
Poland's politicians have kept up a myth that the EU would allow special assistance arising from the climate and emissions trading scheme to go into modernizing Polish coal-fired power. This - as well as a diversion to general revenue - was the model from the last climate deal (whereby Poland abused the EU funding in ways that were not unnoticed in Brussels). Now the new deal has a big coffer, but the projects must go through the Environmental Investment Bank for approval. Note: EIB gave up on generally supporting coal projects more than a year ago. Thus, we have the situation - entirely expected - where the EIB will not allow this sizable fund to be used to continue projects that emit more than a small amount of CO2. "...the EIB does not intend to recommend funding any projects whose emissions are greater than 550gCO2 / kWh, which in practice excludes all coal projects. [An EIB representative] added that the emission limit can only be made more stringent. ..." C...