Poland is one of the biggest polluters in Europe. But it is not the booming economy that drives up this counter

Poland is one of the largest European polluters. We occupy the inglorious fourth place in the European Union in terms of CO2 emissions into the atmosphere – according to the report “Emissions and carbon intensity of the economy in Poland” by BNP Paribas, which quotes . In 2022, Poland emitted 406 million tons of CO2 equivalent.

Poland is one of the largest emitters of pollution

Only the largest economies in Europe produced more carbon dioxide: Germany (789 million tons), France (439 million tons) and Italy (429 million tons). In our case, however, it is not the booming economy that drives up this counter. When it comes to converting CO2 emissions into GDP, unlike the countries mentioned above, we do terrible. Only Bulgaria is worse than us.

The EU average in this conversion is 263 tons per 1 million euro. Italy had 242 tons, Germany 241 tons and France 184 tons. Meanwhile, Poland has approximately 710 tons per EUR 1 million. We do similarly poorly when it comes to calculating greenhouse gases per capita. In 2022, it was 11 tons per inhabitant, while the average in the European Union is 8.1 tons. Not to mention the Germans, Italians and French, who have respectively – 9.4 tons, 7.3 tons and 6.5 tons.

However, the authors of the report point out that it is not the “average Kowalski” who is to blame for these disastrous results. Although the conversion of CO2 emissions per capita is poor, it is not the households that are to blame. On the contrary. These compare really well to the European background and are below the European average, and even lower than in France, Germany or Italy.

Poland’s economic growth has disastrous side effects

The problem, however, is that households are not everything. On the other hand, the Polish energy sector in 2022 was still based on coal, which the report called “a unique phenomenon in the European Union”. The increase in gross domestic product in 2022 was 5.3%, and economic growth is related to energy consumption; if its main source is coal, CO2 emissions are also higher. Another problem is agriculture, which has a high consumption of fossil fuels, which are very high in emissions, and develops larger agricultural areas than in other European countries.

In addition, industrial processing in Poland, especially heavy industry, is also important.
“The emission intensity of Polish industrial processing per unit of gross value added is one of the highest in the EU. And although the emission intensity of the entire industry in Poland has decreased very significantly in recent years, a similar percentage decline also took place in the European Union. As a result, the emission intensity of Polish industrial processing remains almost twice as high as the average in the EU-27,” the report quoted by Interiê indicates.