Pressure to reduce smog, CO2 emissions are unnecessary: Deputy PM
PR dla Zagranicy
Victoria Bieniek
02.02.2017 15:47
Poland does not need the EU to pressure the country into fighting smog and lowering carbon dioxide emissions, Deputy Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki has said.
Bild: Flickr.com/Krzysztof Ruzikowski
Morawiecki’s remarks follow the European Commissioner Maros Sefcovic’s suggestion that recent high levels of smog in Poland would be used in talks to convince the country to modernise its energy production and introduce restrictions in the transport sector.
“We do not need any pressure, we do not need any stimulus, to act,” said Morawiecki in Brussels on Wednesday.
According to Morawiecki, Poland plans to invest hundreds of millions of złoty to tackle smog as well as other initiatives to improve air quality and reduce CO2 emissions.
Poland has been singled out as having some of the most polluted air in the EU.
“We know how we have been labelled but it is enough to look at the number of tonnes of CO2 emissions per capita to see that it is higher in Germany than in Poland,” Morawiecki said.
“Our policies are based on coal because we were the country which, after World War II, inherited coal … and we treat some comments directed at us as extremely unfair,” Morawiecki said.
(vb/rg)
Source: PAP