The European Green Deal and the recovery of the Polish economy: opportunities and challenges

Abstract

Man-made climate change has become the greatest political and economic challenge today. The dictate of GDP as the main measure of prosperity and economic success has led to the wasteful use of natural resources and a drastic increase in greenhouse gas emissions. The consequences are more and more felt: water, food and air pollution, the spread of infectious diseases such as Covid19, or extreme weather phenomena caused by global warming. Limiting these phenomena requires strong and consistent political decisions as well as real actions. The ambitious goals of decarbonisation and climate neutrality adopted by the European Union meet with the strongest resistance and criticism in the former Eastern Bloc countries, whose economies are highly dependent on coal. European policymakers are trying to reconcile the interests of European economies, highly diversified both in terms of the economic structure and the share of fossil fuels in the energy mix. The main tool is to be the unprecedented scale of the European budget earmarked for pro-climate actions, which is to help achieve climate neutrality while maintaining economic growth.