The fact that almost three quarters of Polish citizens stated they would want to see a complete phaseout of coal in the country by 2030 is an indication of a similar trend being replicated on the global scale, Albert Gore, a former US vice president, said on the sidelines of the UN climate change conference (COP24) in Poland on Thursday.
KATOWICE (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 13th December, 2018) The fact that almost three quarters of Polish citizens stated they would want to see a complete phaseout of coal in the country by 2030 is an indication of a similar trend being replicated on the global scale, Albert Gore, a former US vice president, said on the sidelines of the UN climate change conference (COP24) in Poland on Thursday.An opinion poll commissioned by Greenpeace Poland in November found that 69 percent of Polish citizens supported a coal phaseout by 2030 and the development of renewable energy technologies.
"People are rightly demanding that they have clean air to breathe and clean water to drink. The fact that 69 percent of the citizens of Poland are now telling these surveys they want a phaseout of coal is very impressive in a country that still gets 80 percent of its electricity from coal. I think it is a sign of things to come, things already unfolding, changes taking place all over the world," Gore told journalists.
The former US vice president called on participants of the COP24 to accelerate the shift to renewable sources of energy.
"My advice, for what it is worth, would be - accelerate the transition because coal is now in danger of becoming a stranded asset almost everywhere. One of the fundamental realities of our modern time is that the cost of electricity from the sun and the wind is cheaper than electricity from fossil fuels in many geographies around the world," Gore explained.
The 24th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) kicked off in Poland's Katowice on December 2 and will end on Friday.
