Poland has the second largest coal industry in the EU, but while the majority of other member states will stop burning the dirtiest of all fossil fuels this decade, Poland has no such plan. That is, except for the coal region of Eastern Greater Poland, which has taken matters into its own hands and plans to be coal free by 2030.
Inaugurated in April 2022, the 204MW Kozani solar park, built adjacent to several lignite mines, is the largest utility-scale solar farm in southeastern Europe. The first of a planned 3GW of solar power to be built in the country’s lignite regions, it represents just the beginning of Greece’s ongoing massive expansion of solar generation capacity.
The transition of entire regions, and striving towards a sustainable, green and climate-neutral economy requires both a systemic approach aimed at providing comprehensive and overarching strategies, but also providing detailed, tailor-made and co-designed support for smaller stakeholders so that it really is a just transition, leaving no one behind.
People in Sivas, Turkey, have been suffering the toxic impacts of coal for three decades. They say they want change, and that installing σolar panels on the region’s coal sites is a big part of the answer.
The end of Spain’s coal industry presents communities on the front line with numerous challenges and opportunities. Find out how one former mining town has set about adapting to a post-coal world by retrofitting an old coal mine to produce emission-free heat for the community.
Spain has experienced a massive decline over the last year and a half, a large majority of coal mines closed by the end of 2018, more than half of installed coal capacity closed at the end of June 2020, and it is expected that the last coal power plant will shut no later than 2025.
The European Parliament will decide whether it would allow fossil fuel companies to hijack the EU’s iconic Just Transition Fund.
We are calling on financial institutions to demand that utilities develop socially responsible plans for phasing out coal by 2030, the latest.
Every region and every community is different. EU countries wake up to the climate emergency and the need for a swift transition to a sustainable society.