The EV market in Poland is extremely small for a 38mln country, so I believe that by the time it reaches appropriate size the scale will tip in favour of EVs - after all we're bound by EU emissions targets and the associated CO2 market.
Brown coal has been declining in Poland faster than anticipated:
It is being replaced by imported hard coal, but that's still some improvement.
There are also plans for offshore wind, because I believe they finally found a crony that would like to pick this up and make money on government projects.
There are plans for nuclear, but let's just say that there have been for years now and they didn't even manage to pick a site, even though there's a half-finished concrete reactor hull(block?) from the communist era available.
Why does coal have such staying power in Poland? I've heard all about their coal reliance, is it political powers and mining powers who keep it that way? How is air quality and asthma in the country?
In the past it was because we had 400k+ coal miners who were very well organised, so any attempt to touch the coal industry resulted in protests and literal tire fires in Warsaw.
That number went down to 80k by 2020, but they still vote in concert, so any governing party has to tread lightly.
Nowadays it's just that there's a lot of old infrastructure - both power plants and residential heating and noone wants to step up and replace it, because that would mean additional costs - we're a stingy folk.
As a result the coal industry is currently being subsidised to the tune of 9bln PLN (€2bln) annually.
As for air quality: during the winter it's just awful - mostly because of homeowners who burn coal dust and garbage for heating.
I live in Wrocław and bought an air purifier in September, but already had to replace the HEPA filter that was supposed to last a year, because a week of PM2.5 over 200ug/m3 was enough to clog it entirely.
Poland is planning to build six nuclear reactors in the near future.
One of the biggest consumers of coal within the EU is actually Germany which have a rising reliance on fossil fuels due to them shutting down nuclear power plants.
Brown coal has been declining in Poland faster than anticipated:
https://wysokienapiecie.pl/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/polish...
It is being replaced by imported hard coal, but that's still some improvement.
There are also plans for offshore wind, because I believe they finally found a crony that would like to pick this up and make money on government projects.
There are plans for nuclear, but let's just say that there have been for years now and they didn't even manage to pick a site, even though there's a half-finished concrete reactor hull(block?) from the communist era available.