Agnieszka Tomaszewska

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Monday 05 January, 2009

My name is Agnieszka Tomaszewska and I am a projects coordinator at the Climate and Energy Team at the British Embassy in Warsaw. The Team was created in April 2008, and this is my first entry in this blog. I am glad that I will be able to tell you what we do and in particular, to share information about climate and energy projects implemented in Poland with the support of the British Embassy.

I recently came back from Poznań. Since 1st December, the COP 14 meeting has been in progress there. Experts and politicians from almost all countries of the world have been reflecting on the future of the global climate policy. Under the COP14 logo, apart from negotiations carried out by state delegations, a number of exhibitions have been organised as well as information stands and other accompanying events.

The reason for my visit in Poznań, and actually not Poznań itself but the village of Będlewo, 30 km from Poznań, was the launch of a CSS (carbon capture and storage) project. The project is implemented by the Polish Confederation of Private Employers (PKPP Lewiatan) (a Polish equivalent of CBI) in cooperation with the Polish Platform for Clean Coal Technology. It is supported by the British Embassy in the form of a grant from the Strategic Programme Fund Low Carbon High Growth (SPF LCHG) , a UK FCO programme promoting low carbon economy.

Even though CCS was not the main topic of the conference in Będlewo, which bore the title “Clean coal and nuclear technologies for combating climate change”, this issue did raise a lot of interest. It is generally known that Polish government wants two of the CCS demonstration plants to be located in Poland. However, there is no consensus in the EU yet, as to the source of funding for this project. It seems that an agreement on this may be reached during the Climate and Energy Package discussions later this week.

The representatives of the Polish government and the energy sector, attending the conference, admitted that CCS technologies may be successfully applied in Poland and prof. Jerzy Buzek – a Member of the European Parliament and the conference organiser – emphasised that Poland should become a European leader in clean coal technologies. However, CCS installations are very expensive and there is still a number of questions to be answered before the construction works can begin. The project of PKPP Lewiatan provides a good opportunity to launch a national debate over those issues.

On my way back from the conference I looked through a few project applications submitted to the Embassy for a new low carbon projects competition. For a few weeks now I have been sending comments back to the applicant organisations. The consultation process takes some time but I would really like the applications to be very well prepared: they must fulfill the SPF LCHG criteria, must be clear and transparent. Only the best applications will be sent to London in mid December, where the SPF LCHG team will assess them and decide whether funds can be awarded. There are still so many fascinating projects that could be implemented in Poland. I look forward to seeing more!