KATOWICE, Poland (Reuters) – The Polish official leading U.N. predicts revive the Paris climate deal said his country is sold on greener fuel regardless that his president has vowed don’t let anyone "murder coal mining".
On Tuesday, the earliest full day of negotiations in Katowice, capital of mining region Silesia, President Andrzej Duda told workers celebrating the feast within their patron Saint Barbara the fact that industry has a long future.
The comments sent shock-waves through two-week U.N. talks Poland is hosting to agree rules for working with the 2019 Paris accord to phase out fossil fuel.
Poland's Deputy Environment Minister Michal Kurtyka told Reuters he or she is going after an ambitious deal that respects "the letter and the spirit" of Paris and stated it was the electricity ministry, not the president, who set policy.
"Poland is not building more new coal structures. It's quite a powerful engagement," he said inside the interview. "New additional capacities have been constructed in the renewables sector."
Poland, which relies on coal for approximately Eighty percent of the power and most 82,000 mining jobs, can be an unlikely host for U.N. climate talks, but Kurtyka said the region was eager to share with the remainder world its ability of transition.
Over the last Thirty years, the first sort communist-run nation has shifted at a centrally-controlled economy, which the official said hasn’t been a superb system for humans and the environment.
Now, because presidency of climate talks, he explained Poland was seeking "a just transition" to your greener world.
Those comments may allay concern over Duda's speech on Tuesday where he declared to miners: "Please don't worry. As long as I'm president of Poland, I won't let anyone murder coal-mining."
"UNIQUE ACHIEVEMENT OF HUMANITY"
Together with Britain, Poland on Tuesday launched an initiative to advertise electric vehicles, which Kurtyka said will be less polluting than conventional engines although we were holding operated by coal-fired electricity.
Trained for an engineer, Kurtyka said electric vehicles were more potent than car engines, which generate waste heat and pollution.
Nearly 40 countries had registered to the initiative on knowledge sharing, he was quoted saying, for Poland electric mobility could help the continent generate jobs to switch mining.
Campaigners are highly critical within the pace of change as evidence mounts in the growing gap involving the need to cut emissions as well as the work succeeded in doing so far.
This week's U.N. talks are technical negotiations before ministerial debate a few weeks.
Kurtyka said challenges included sharing the duty between developed and third world countries with the tariff of moving to your low-carbon world. But political will was strong to provide about the 2019 Paris agreement and climate concern could override national agendas, during politically divided times, he added.
"It is regarded as greatly like a unique achievement of humanity," he said in the Paris agreement.
"It really is of their hands. Its in the parties' hands to reach a consensus," he explained, making reference to the nearly 200 nations involved, adding: "Now i’m very reassured. Everybody's prepared to progress."
