Let’s Count the Ways the Polish Government Earned The Fossil of the Day, while the Polish People Deserve Only Rays
Photo Credit: David Tong, Adopt A Negotiator
The list of reasons to award Poland as the first place fossil is probably the longest any country has ever earned.
Reason 1: Continuously opposing the European Union from taking more ambitious climate action
Reason 2: Co-hosting a Coal Summit coinciding with the COP but not organizing any debate on renewable energy opportunities
Reason 3: Inviting polluting companies that openly oppose an ambitious climate action to sponsor the COP
Reason 4: Allowing the dirty side of European industry, Business Europe, to represent the business voice at the pre-COP
Reason 5: Writing mad postings on the official COP19 website about the economic opportunities the melting Arctic will bring as well as chasing the “pirates, ecologists and terrorists” on the sea
Reason 6: Presenting delegates with standard climate denialist rhetoric through their mobile device app, repeating the old chestnut that “climate changes are natural phenomena, which occured (sic) many times on Earth”.
Poland, it is not ok to misuse your position as a COP President to advance your own coal agenda. Stop it.
Ray of the Day for the Renewable Energy Loving Polish People
The Polish government is holding the world back and acting as the PR department of the coal industry.
But the Polish people want to grasp a renewable future, not be stuck in a coal-based past. No less than 89% of Polish citizens want more energy to come from renewable sources and more than two-thirds of Polish people (70%) want an energy policy that gives support to renewables. 73% of Polish people want Poland to be more involved in global actions to prevent the negative effects of climate change.
With this ray we say: Thank you, Poles, for supporting a future without climate chaos. It is about time that Prime Minister Tusk and his government listen to their people and go for an energy revolution based on energy efficiency and renewables. All renewable power to the Polish people.
About CAN: The Climate Action Network (CAN) is a worldwide network of over 850 Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) in more than 100 working to promote government and individual action to limit human0induced climate change to ecologically sustainable levels. www.climatenetwork.org
About the fossils: The Fossil of the Day awards were first presented at the climate talks in 1999, in Bonn, initiated by the German NGO Forum. During United Nations climate change negotiations (www.unfccc.int), members of the Climate Action Network (CAN), vote for countries judged to have done their 'best' to block progress in the negotiations in the last days of talks.
About the rays: CAN, gives out the 'Ray of The Day' award to the countries who are a ray of hope over the past days of negotiations at the UN climate change conference. This ‘Ray of Solidarity’ is in the same spirit.