Wagons loaded with coal in Poland | Wojtek Radwanski/AFP via Getty Images Is Poland ready to call time on King Coal? Voters’ increasing awareness of climate change is driving a new consensus that coal’s years are numbered.

Mining for votes ahead of a general election this fall, Poland’s political parties are now more open about a national taboo: ending the use of coal.

For decades, burning hard and lignite coal has been a cornerstone of Poland’s self-sufficiency in electricity generation. With a share of nearly 80 percent, coal remains by far the biggest source of electricity in Poland’s energy mix.

“We have 200 years’ worth of coal,” President Andrzej Duda said during last year’s climate talks in Katowice — flaunting Poland’s hardheaded opposition to ditching the dirty fuel.

But voters’ rising awareness of climate change is driving a new consensus in Poland that coal’s years are numbered.

On Saturday, activists from the Climate Camp protest group entered the premises of the planned open cast lignite mine in Tomisławice, western Poland — echoing recent protests against lignite mining in Germany.

“It’s obvious we have to transition away from coal, but the big question mark was [the] realistic timing to ensure [a] just transition" — Gabriela Lenartowicz, Civic Platform MP

“This was our first civil disobedience action and we would like to enable more. Our goal is to have all coal mines shut down in Poland by 2030,” said Climate Camp activist Diana Zawilec.

Poland's politicians are taking note. Most parties now want to eradicate coal from home heating and electricity production by 2040 at the latest.

Fringe leftist parties like Zieloni (Greens) and Razem (Together) have pushed the anti-coal message for years, and newcomer center-left party Wiosna (Spring), has this year used a media furor generated by its charismatic leader Robert Biedroń to put getting rid of coal center stage.

“Extractable reserves of coal are declining in Poland, and it’s high time we looked at important issues, like climate, from a perspective longer than the next parliamentary term,” said Anita Sowińska, a Wiosna board member.

The Greens, Razem and Wiosna want to remove coal from Poland’s energy mix by 2035.

But what was a marginal view just a few months ago is entering a political mainstream that has traditionally been reluctant to tinker with Poland's energy policy.

Earlier this month, Poland’s biggest opposition party, Civic Platform (PO) — which heads a conglomerate of smaller entities in the so-called Civic Coalition — said it wants to end the use of coal in home heating by 2030, in district heating by 2035, and, finally, in electricity generation in 2040.

“It’s obvious we have to transition away from coal, but the big question mark was [the] realistic timing to ensure [a] just transition,” said Gabriela Lenartowicz, a Civic Platform MP who sits on the parliamentary environment committee.

That leaves the Law and Justice party (PiS) as the main force looking to preserve coal beyond 2040. The ruling populists are wary of upsetting the powerful mining unions in the southern region of Katowice. That is also the city that Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki has chosen to run from in the election this fall.

“We have coal in Poland and this coal is and will remain one of the main pillars of the energy security of our country. We will keep it in the Polish energy mix by 2040 and possibly beyond,” Piotr Naimski, the government’s adviser on energy infrastructure, said earlier this month.

Still, PiS says it would like to develop as many as six nuclear blocks by 2040 to produce a fifth of Poland’s electricity. That would reduce the role of coal in Poland's energy mix by about the same margin. PiS has also pledged to develop offshore wind, which will further squeeze coal-based power generation.

Nuclear option

Setting deadlines for ending coal use is one thing. Deciding what to put in its place is another, and that has triggered heated debate on the choice between nuclear power and full reliance on renewables.

That latter option — of moving to 100 percent renewables — is highly controversial and, many experts and science papers say, nigh on impossible. That's because renewables don't work all the time and when they do, they can produce an excess of energy that Poland doesn't yet have the ability to store on mass scale.

For now, the debate follows the country's political faultlines, with PiS against the opposition.

“We all agree we need to reduce emissions fast. And I hope we will agree on a realistic scenario for achieving that reduction” — Filip Chudy, member of Razem’s national council

“PiS’s nuclear power plans are unrealistic and wrong,” said Lenartowicz, whose party started the nuclear power project in 2009 only to see it fizzle out five years later having built up costs of around 200 million zloty (€47 million).

“We need to max out the share of renewables in the mix [and] invest in smart grid and distributed energy. There’s no time for nuclear,” Lenartowicz added.

Even among the leftist groups, there is disagreement on what a post-coal Poland should look like, with pro-nuclear Razem pitted against anti-nuclear Wiosna and the Democratic Left Alliance, the SLD.

But the left — looking to at least reduce PiS’s majority in the next parliament — is wary of allowing the issue to cloud coalition talks.

“We all agree we need to reduce emissions fast. And I hope we will agree on a realistic scenario for achieving that reduction,” said Filip Chudy, a member of Razem’s national council.

The future direction of Poland’s energy sector should become clearer after the election this fall.

PiS retains a comfortable lead in opinion polls, pointing to a majority in the next parliament and — in theory — a mandate to restart the nuclear transformation and drag out the debate on Poland's climate policy.