Gazeta.pl will not publish misleading anti-EU advertisements on electricity prices

The electricity price campaign started with a few billboards and quickly flooded Poland. Advertisements, paid for by state-owned energy producers, appeared not only on posters, but also in the press, television and the Internet.

The Gazeta.pl portal also received a commercial offer for placing such a banner on our home page. We refused. Previously, some users of our website could show such ads by automatic advertising programs, but we also blocked their publication there.

Gazeta.pl recognizes that this advertising campaign is inconsistent with our values ​​and program line, especially with reliable information on climate change. Climate policy – like all other public topics – can and should be the subject of debate and an exchange of views. However, there can be no honest debate or information when one of the parties is manipulating and misleading. Meanwhile, this is what this campaign is doing – judge Polish experts, the European Commission, activists and some politicians. Worse, it brings to mind the (also manipulated) campaign ahead of the Brexit referendum. There is no room for such content in Gazeta.pl – neither in editorial publications nor in advertisements.

we are involved in all matters important to our readers and the climate crisis is at the center of our attention. We try not only to report the reality, but also to explain it – to point out false sentences, false theories. In the name of badly understood objectivism, we do not want to stand between good and evil, negationism and ecology, unverified theories and facts.

Why the campaign is misleading

The campaign of state-owned companies producing energy – Tauron Wytwarzanie, Enea Wytwarzanie, Enea Połaniec, PGE GiEK and PGNiG Termika – is to inform about the reasons for rising energy prices. The posters say that “60 costs of energy production” is “the EU climate tax”.

In fact – as calculated by Forum Energii – the cost of emission allowances is about 23 percent. the amount on the electricity bill. The authors of the campaign defend themselves by saying that it does not concern fees paid by consumers, but costs for producers. However, the nationwide campaign is clearly aimed at individual recipients. And the slogan “climate policy = expensive energy” and the percentages shown on the light bulb may suggest to people that it is 60 percent. the bills they pay result from the “climate tax”.

Secondly, the very term “climate tax” is misleading. It may suggest that it is about money that we “pay” to the European Union coffers. Meanwhile, it is the Polish government – like the governments of other countries – that sells emission allowances and makes money on it. Only in the last year, thanks to the rising prices of these allowances, the government earned a record 25 billion zlotys. This money could be spent on emission-free energy sources such as windmills, solar panels or a nuclear power plant. These would provide electricity without emitting CO2 and without the need to purchase raw materials such as coal or gas, thanks to which consumers would pay lower bills.

Third, it is not a “climate policy” fee. Energy producers pay for “littering” the atmosphere with carbon dioxide, contributing to global warming. This works on the “polluter pays” principle. Were it not for the fee for emission allowances, energy producers could treat the Earth’s atmosphere as a free “garbage” in which millions of tons of carbon dioxide can be deposited without (financial) consequences.