Warsaw’s official reaction on the Fossil!

How influential is the Fossil of the Day Award? Very much!

Yesterday Poland/Coaland got the Fossil of the Day Award for putting coal ahead of climate.

Today in Brussels Mikolaj Dowgielewicz, Polish Minister of European Affairs, commented on yesterday’s Fossil ceremony. He said: “We are asking the organizations that gave us this award to withdraw it and apologize the presidency. The event that was granted the patronage of Polish presidency was on renewable energy sources. We did not promote any event of the coal lobby.”

The campaign to protect the good name of the Polish Presidency was supported by Bogdan Marcinkiewicz, an MEP from the right-wing European People’s Party, who together with his German Colleague Christian Ehler, organized the event in the European Parliament. In a statement sent to Polish journalists he announced: “I got the permission to use the logo of Polish Presidency for an exhibition “Methane, good green energy” that took place in the European Parliament. The exhibition was a part of the 2nd European Coal Days where together with Guenther Oettinger, the EU Comissioner for Energy, we were debating ecological use of coal.”

As well Paul Watkinson, a lead climate negotiator for France, defended Poland on Twitter: A bit unfair to give a fossil to our Polish presidency who are working hard here in Durban #COP17 bit.ly/v6qoC7

CAN answered to this situation as follows: “We are relieved that the Polish Presidency decided to distance itself from the coal lobby event. The fact remains that Poland plans to invest in dirty energy and to be a credible climate leader it’s necessary for Poland to quit its coal investment plan and embrace a greener energy future.”

The news about Mr. Dowgielewicz’s message was spread by the biggest Polish press agency and was quoted and commented by the biggest news web sites. This was actually the first time when Polish people could read about COP17 in the main-stream media.