Agnieszka Tomaszewska

Strategic Programme Fund: Low Carbon High Growth

On 9 and 10 June I took part in a seminar in London, organised by the Strategic Programme Fund Low Carbon High Growth (SPF LCHG) Team. It was my first opportunity to meet colleagues from 23 British embassies coordinating SPF LCHG projects.

I think that the seminar was a great success, its best aspects including experience presentations and discussions on what worked and what did not work in the individual countries.  Apart from the SPF LCHG Team, very interesting talks were given by representatives of countries such as China, Brazil, Mexico, Russia, India or the United States. We also spent much time discussing selection and implementation of strategic projects in the area of climate, energy and economic reform.

We shared our experiences in ongoing project monitoring and in assessing projects already completed. Also, I very much liked the seminar's part dedicated to best practice in drafting project applications.

I had the pleasure to present the strategy and communication tools for the SPF LCHG programme in Poland.      

Many thanks to the SPF LCHG Team for organising the seminar and to colleagues from other embassies for their very interesting contributions. We are working on many common topics, therefore I hope that we will have more opportunities to cooperate in the future.  

Posted at 17:18 29 July 2009 by Agnieszka Tomaszewska  |  Comments[0]

Poles on climate change

We have recently carried out an interesting project. It was a public opinion survey on the views and attitudes of the Polish people concerning climate change. The project’s final event was a press conference held on 29 April. With this survey we have responded to a number of suggestions addressed to the Embassy Climate and Energy Team by various organisations who believed that such a project would help them in their work on climate policy and promotion of low carbon economy. Our partner in the project was The Public Opinion Research Centre (CBOS), one of the oldest and the biggest public opinion research centres in Poland.

Which parts of the report have I found the most interesting?
 
· Over 80% of respondents believe that climate change is a serious problem, and more than 90% declare that they are involved in activities aiming at preventing climate change.
· 51% of respondents support the construction of nuclear power stations, and 38.4% are against it.
· 59% support the implementation of carbon capture and storage technologies (CCS) in Poland, and 16% oppose them. At the same time, every fourth respondent does not know what CCS is.

I have also learnt that the public figures most often mentioned as those who could really persuade the Poles to take action to protect the climate, are Prime Minister Donald Tusk and President Lech Kaczyński. Among organisations and companies, the respondents most frequently named Greenpeece and Zieloni (the Green), who stood out as the leaders of the list.

I must admit that I was surprised by the lack of faith among Poles (only 9% of respondents) in the role business could play in protecting the climate. This role is rather attributed to central government (67.5%) and local government (32.9%). Whereas to me it seems that enterprises have a great potential to play a significant role here. This is what happened in the United Kingdom, where for many years business has been involved in public debate on fighting climate change. Such projects are implemented, for instance, by CBI.

Both the CBOS report and a record of the discussion of experts that took place during the press conference, will soon be available. I would like to recommend this material especially to the organisations interested in carrying out social projects related to climate change.

Posted at 14:21 18 May 2009 by Agnieszka Tomaszewska  |  Comments[0]

Time to celebrate

That was a good day. DemosEuropa project application“Carbon Capture and Storage as a preferred technology for mainstreaming the clean use of coal in Poland” was approved by the Programme Fund Strategic Team. We met to celebrate our success.

The project will be launched in the coming weeks and will last until April 2011. As part of the project, DemosEuropa is planning to prepare three reports. The first will deal with regulatory and legislative issues, the second will assess the impact of CCS implementation in Poland. The third report will focus on the cooperation between business community and R&D centres. 

But the project is not just about the reports. It will also include a number of study visits, consultation and experience sharing between Polish and British partners. You will soon be able to read about the project details on the DemosEuropa website. Congratulations to the DemosEuropa team, I look forward to contining our cooperation.

Posted at 16:36 12 May 2009 by Agnieszka Tomaszewska  |  Comments[0]

Carbon Trust needed...

A number of activities aiming to increase energy efficiency assume cooperation with the business. This is certainly true about the project of PKPP Lewiatan "Promoting legislation and good practice to support improvement of energy efficiency in Poland".
 
PKPP Lewiatan, in cooperation with the Polish National Energy Conservation Agency, have prepared a report on the most energy-consuming industries in Poland. Those include chemical industry, steel, glass, cement  industries and many others. The Report identifies barriers to the implementation of solutions promoting energy efficiency in industrial plants and gives practical advice on how to reduce the industrial processes energy consumption.
 
One of the Report's recommendations is to form an organisation in Poland that would operate on similar principles as the Carbon Trust in the UK. The British Embassy has just been asked to assist in the preparation of a visit by Carbon Trust representatives to Poland. The visit would provide a chance to discuss practical aspects of the Trust's activities. We know that a lot of people and organisations are interested in meeting the British experts. I hope that in the coming months I will have a chance to report on  the visit and let you know about its outcomes.

Posted at 10:54 19 March 2009 by Agnieszka Tomaszewska  |  Comments[0]

We are speeding up...

We are approaching the end of the FCO's financial year, which means speeding up the work on some of the projects. Every day brings new challenges and new experience. Our activities require preparation and time, and there is always too little of the latter...
 
Last week, the Public Opinion Research Centre CBOS, and the British Embassy, agreed the final version of the questionnaire to poll the Polish public about climate change perception. As it usually happens with this type of projects, choosing the right wording for the questions and all the consultations that involved, required a lot of commitment on the part of the Energy and Climate Team, the Embassy’s Press and Communications Section as well as CBOS, which had won the project delivery competition. It was important to us that in the poll, the climate issues should be treated in a comprehensive way and the views shared by the respondents should be as close to the reality as possible.  The CBOS pollsters are already in the field with the questionnaires and we can’t wait to see the survey results!  
 
A few days ago, I had the pleasure to meet Mr. Tom Corcut, economic advisor and the Head of the Carbon Emissions Trading Team at the UK Department of Energy and Climate Change. Tom came to Poland for the launch of a UKIE [Polish Office of the Committee for European Integration] project, Impact Assessment for Poland of the EU  ETS Directive. The project is implemented with the support of demosEuropa and the British Embassy and co-funded from the UK FCO programme supporting low carbon economy - Strategic Programme Fund Low Carbon High Growth  (SPF LCHG). Tom Corcut gave a presentation on Impact Assessment for ETS Directive in the UK and answered questions from Polish experts interested in using the British methodology in preparing the Impact Assessment for Poland. It was the first of a series of consultation meetings planned under the project, so I believe I will soon be able to write more about the progress of the works.
 
Our list of tasks for the nearest future includes a semi-annual report on projects implementation, work on another set of project proposals which we will present to SPF LCHG next week.  On top of that, there will be some new events to coordinate in the coming weeks. There is no time for boredom in the Climate and Energy Team!
 

Posted at 15:13 13 March 2009 by Agnieszka Tomaszewska  |  Comments[0]

2008 went by so fast...

Just before Christmas, the Projects Committee held a meeting, chaired by Michael Halpin, the Head of the British Embassy Climate and Energy Team. We selected the best five proposals for low carbon economy projects submitted to the Embassy by Polish organisations.

Two of them involve carbon capture and storage (CCS) technologies. This is an important issue for the UK. David Miliband , UK Foreign Secretary, mentioned it recently in his blog. It has also been attracting more and more interest in Poland, especially in the context of the Climate-Energy Package.
  
The other projects refer to issues such as improving energy efficiency and increasing the share of renewable energy in the energy mix. The institutions which submitted the projects include non-governmental organisations, think-tanks and research institutes.  Following the meeting, we sent the projects to the Project Committee of the FCO Strategic Programme Fund Low Carbon High Growth - SPF LCHG . In mid-January we shall find out which proposals will pass on to the next stage of the competition.

I would really like our projects to be approved by the SPF LCHG as they are both interesting and innovative. Their implementation will promote investment in modern technologies and job creation. New jobs may appear in those sectors of the economy which will develop as a result of climate protection activities. This has already happened in some Western European countries.
 
The year 2008 was a fascinating time in the history of the still quite young British Embassy Climate and Energy Team. Between April and December we were involved in a number of visits, meetings and events, preceding the COP14 climate conference in Poznań  and the EU summit in Brussels. I can't remember ever before meeting, in such a short time, so many people devoted to climate protection. I know that we will go on working together in the coming year and that we will all face some more breakthroughs in the near future. I will certainly write about them in my blog.

I'd like to take this opportunity to wish you all a happy and prosperous New Year!

Posted at 11:51 08 January 2009 by Agnieszka Tomaszewska  |  Comments[0]