Poland to Veto EU Climate Decisions Friday: Government Sources

Environment ministers of the 27-nation bloc are meeting in Brussels on Friday with the aim of approving the 2050 road map, which Warsaw has already vetoed once, and to move towards a joint stance on the global negotiations.

"Technically, it's bound to be two vetoes," a senior government source said on condition of anonymity.

"We cannot agree to anything that would directly or indirectly allow for higher emission reduction goals in the near future," another government source added.

Poland, which relies on coal for more than 90 percent of its

electricity needs, has been a staunch opponent of the EU's climate policies since it joined the bloc in 2004. It says there is no sufficient research or data that would allow to move further on climate agenda.

"If we are to be in this all alone, so be it. But there is a chance we will not be," the first source said in referring to Warsaw's talks with its regional peers on preventing the EU from accepting more ambitious climate targets.

COLLISION COURSE

Poland's centrist government says it will not agree to accepting the road map's milestones laying out emission reduction goals for 2030, 2040 and 2050, nor to introducing an option of intervening within the Emissions Trading System (ETS) to prop up the European pollution permits prices.

"On the first one, these are just the European Commission's findings and we can take note of them, nothing more. On the latter, the Commission admits this could raise the 2020 target to 25 percent. We are strongly against the set-aside option," the second source added.

Warsaw says the EU should not adopt any new binding targets unless the world's other top emitters like China, Russia or the United States agree to a global climate deal to replace the Kyoto Protocol.

It also opposes an idea to ban trading within the EU with surplus pollution permits under the Kyoto Protocol, or AAUs.

Countries below greenhouse gas targets under the global climate scheme can sell excess emission rights to third parties and Poland had some 500 million tones of CO2 equivalent after much of its heavily-polluting industry shut down since the 1989 overthrow of communism.

Source: Reuters