EU chief responds to Poland with a call for prompt clean energy transition
The European Commission president has reacted to an energy resolution adopted by Poland's Silesia mining region by suggesting the reduction in overall demand for fossil fuels.
The Energy Resolution 2022 was signed on April 22 in Katowice, southern Poland, by the participants of the conference "Silesia 2030", including Climate Minister Anna Moskwa. Among the postulates contained in the document was rapid independence from Russian oil and gas, reform of the EU emissions trading system (ETS) and a revision of the current EU climate policy.
On Wednesday, the office of the MEP Grzegorz Tobiszowski, who initiated the resolution, published a reply from the President of the European Commission (EC), Ursula von der Leyen. In her letter, she wrote that on May 18, the EC adopted the REPowerEU package with the goal to make Europe as independent as possible from Russian fossil fuels by 2030, and to accelerate the introduction of renewable energy to replace fossil fuels.
In her view, reducing the overall demand for fossil fuels must be consistent and forward-looking, and the European Green Deal and Fit for 55 package is leading the European Union in this direction. She also defended the current ETS system as an efficient method to motivate for reductions in CO2 emissions.
