I consider it important for the Social Council of the National CO2 Emission Reduction Programme to take account of McKinsey’s latest report assessing Poland’s capacity to reduce CO2 emissions. Based on a methodology applied in many countries, the report offers a very interesting picture of Poland’s main energy sources and its capacity to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Worth pointing out is that emission reduction capacity depends primarily on improving energy efficiency. This has to be kept constantly in mind because this task involves economically justified efforts to assure cheap energy for customers on the one hand and on the other, reducing emissions and consequently improving climate conditions.

Very interesting is the list of economic sectors that have the highest emission reduction capacity contained in the report. Surely, the power engineering sector is mentioned as one where that capacity is the highest. The capacity is also high in the “homes” sector, in that of “transportation” and slightly smaller in “industry”. It is also noteworthy that possible reduction capacity in the “waste treatment” and “agriculture” sectors are between them comparable to such capacity in “industry”. Moreover, the costs of emission reduction in “industry” is high, while great profits and financial rewards can be expected by bringing emissions down in the “waste treatment” and “agriculture” sectors. To conclude a graph is drawn up in the report highlighting Poland’s long term GHG abatement potential using various instruments and illustrating the costs involved.

The Social Council of the National CO2 Emission Reduction Programme should heed McKinsey report in working out its detailed reduction programmes and encouraging entrepreneurs as well as government administration to take action to this end.

The Council should also take advantage in its proceedings of the expertise of other countries. The Polish proposal regarding the provisional EU target in the energy-climate package based on a benchmark mechanism on the one hand and on an auction mechanism on the other, which is promoting speedy advance to using the best available technologies, has met with broad response and applause among countries outside Europe. Great interest in the proposal has been shown in America and Russia and interestingly, also in China. It turns out that the Polish proposal is more appealing than the EU idea of introducing its emission trading scheme immediately.

It would be worthwhile to place this issue on the agenda of the European Parliament to see how measures proposed by the EU correspond with proposals from other parts of the world, now that the Copenhagen Climate Summit is over. This is to ensure that all arguments are placed on the table and that the issue is discussed also in committees involving social partners. It is there that Poland should show its remarkable experiences in cutting down GHG emissions. In that respect Poland has been an exceptional country in Europe and in the world. As a result of various measures taken over the past twenty years of transformations, Poland has reduced its CO2 emissions by 30% and increased its GDP by 50%. This country is justifiably proud of what it has achieved. While the “old” EU countries put forward very ambitious ideas, the fact is that if it had not been for the “new” EU members, the European Union as a whole would not have been capable of implementing the Kyoto decisions.