Coal nation

By: Hilary Chiew on December 5th, 2008

To the uninitiated, Ostrowskie lake looks like the perfect summer vacation getaway even in early winter when the trees are barren of leaves.

Waterbirds swooped down to catch their meals and there were even some swans basking in the sun on an otherwise chilly morning.

But local resident Jozef Drzazgowski has a different story to share: one that spells doom for the picturesque district of Przyjezierze.

Drzazgowski, chairman of the Lake District Association, has been fighting to stop further exploitation of coal, an industry that set foot in the Wielkopolska region of central Poland after World War II.

Drzazgowski blames the industry and its customers – the three nearby coal-fired power plants of 1,800MW each – for the receding lake water as well as the drop in the level of groundwater. He says what once used to be a huge linked body of water of 2,600ha in Konin county is now split into different sections.

“The water level has decreased by 1.5 meters since 2000. This lake was 350 ha in extent, but 50 ha is gone and it’s now divided into two parts with land in the middle,” he said, pointing to the protruding patch of rock not far from the shore.

“The industry accused tourism and climate change of causing the problem. But do the tourists take the water (away with them)? If it’s climate change-induced then it has to affect the other lakes as well but why is only the water level of this lake dropping?” he asked.

He said the problem is caused by the extraction of the lake water to cool the power plants’ turbines and is extremely worried that even the ancient groundwater is not spared.

Locals, according to him, are drilling deeper to get water as they are afraid to use the increasingly stagnant lake water which they think is unsafe.

Located 142km away from Poznan – the Polish city that is playing host to the 14th United Nations meeting on climate change – the coalmines of Konin are the second largest in Poland.

Coal accounts for 93% of the country’s energy, more than double the world’s average, earning it the dubious title of the China of Europe. The power stations in Konin supply 15% of the national grid’s power.

So it is not surprising that the county attracted Greenpeace’s activists in the run-up to the global climate change talks.

Since November 12, the green group has set up its Climate Rescue Station, a four-storey tall planet Earth dome at the edge of the Jozwin open-cast pit.

Greenpeace’s solar energy-powered station is serving as a focal point for opposition to the expansion of coal mining in Poland, with its exhibition on the environmental and health impacts from burning coal.

An independent Dutch research institute, CE Delft, calculates that reliance on coal comes with a price tag of US$360 billion annually, based on the damage attributable to climate change, impacts on human health from air pollution, and fatalities due to major mining accidents.

One third of CO2 emissions, the major greenhouse gas that is warming the planet, come from the burning of coal for power generation.

Greenpeace also staged its usual stunt of scaling two chimneys at one of the power plants, where it unfurled a banner displaying its demand for Poland to ‘Quit Coal, Save the Climate’.

Five climbers spent 50 hours occupying the chimneys before finally rappelling to the ground on Thursday.

On Wednesday, the head of Greenpeace’s global climate campaign, Gavin Edwards, who was one of the five climbers, said he felt compelled to lead the demonstration 150m above ground on the Patnow power plant’s smokestack as it was a very important chance to send a message to negotiators at Poznan to get serious about preventing dangerous climate change.

“We want to see a strong signal from Poland that it is serious about moving away from coal. But instead the government is blocking a European Union-wide plan to cut emissions. Poland is trying to look for an exception for more coal-fired power plants, the opposite of what we need,” he said via a satellite phone link from the smokestack.

Poland intends to exploit its brown coal reserves and build more coal-fired power plants to meet its energy needs despite it being a member of the EU that is working on a climate and energy package supposed to commit the bloc to the peaking of global emissions by 2015. The EU is also committed to a reduction of emissions at the upper end of the 25-40% range (from 1990 levels) by 2020 identified as necessary by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

A member of the Climate Action Network, Greenpeace has also ensured that Poland is shamed for its continued addiction to coal by giving it the ‘Fossil of the Day” award, the first time it was presented to a host country, on the opening day of the two-week meeting.

However, the Konin coalmine spokesman Arkadiusz Michalski said it was Poland’s right to continue to depend on coal as the country had only begun industrializing some years ago and was playing catch-up with western Europe.

“It’s going to be like that for a long time. We’re not ready for renewable energy yet,” said Michalski, adding that coal mining is important for the development of the formerly agrarian and poor region.

He accused Greenpeace of capitalising on the climate meeting to target Poland which is producing the same amount, 16 million tonnes of coal a year, as Greece.

Third World Network’s Chee Yoke Ling reckons that the equity issue (the sharing of responsibilities and burdens) is something that the EU will have to sort out among its member states, which include the highly-industrialised countries of western Europe and the emerging markets of the former communist Eastern Europe.

“That’s the reason why Poland is resisting the package,” she said.

Meanwhile, water shortages in the lake district are hampering tourism and food production. A prolonged drought and falling groundwater reserves are making farming impossible. Fertile land is also lost to the expanding mining operations, and former pits will require 50 years of rehabilitation.

Farmers, said Drzazgowski, are at their wits’ end, and some choose to give up agriculture.

The head of the regional Department of Meteorology and Water, Janusz Wisniewski, said Konin was turning into an arid area as the water-stress situation worsened over the years.

“It was a fertile zone but its agriculture production has been severely affected by the water shortage, and that is certainly not due to climate change,” he said.