Parliamentary elections will take place on 15 October 2023. While most parties are working on their electoral programme and wondering how to win over the undecided, there is one organisation that has decided to work across the divides.

The Climate Coalition has appealed to all electoral committees to make a declaration regarding our future. The organisation would like each political party to commit to making the first 16 key environmental and climate decisions in their first 100 days in power.

There is something that should unite us regardless of which party we support. It is, of course, concern for our future. However, the future awaiting us, as we learn from numerous scientific reports, will not look good if we do not address the climate crisis.

That is why the Climate Coalition, together with 53 climate, environmental and social organisations, issued an appeal to electoral committees.

Apart from 16 key decisions we mentioned above, the Climate Coalition would also like the ruling party to start working on the adoption of a climate protection law and point out what actions could be taken during the first 100 days in power. 16 demands for a future ruling party are listed on their website.

These include setting up an Energy Transformation Fund (Polish: Fundusz Transformacji Energetyki), allocating more funding for walking and cycling infrastructure or permanently excluding 20% of forests from economic use. There is also a mention of environmental education in schools.

Do you wonder why any party would agree to this? Maybe because the effects of the climate crisis are already getting more and more serious – just to mention the fires in France, Greece or Spain and the fact that July 2023 turned out to be the warmest month in the history of temperature measurements.

"Recent months have shown what taking no action to protect the climate leads to: a direct threat to the health and lives of tourists, massive property damage, droughts and torrential rains destroying crops and threatening food security, heatwaves increasing mortality rate, hurricanes and tornadoes destroying infrastructure... This is the new normal. If we do not stop climate change, it will only get worse," Zbigniew M. Karaczun, Ph.D., professor at the Warsaw University of Life Sciences, writes on the Climate Coalition website.

Although the vision of all parties joining forces in the context of fighting the climate crisis sounds beautiful, one has to admit that there are representatives who may have a problem with this. Unfortunately, for many, the climate crisis is not as important as, for example, low taxes or defending Poles against "LGBT ideology". It would be really wonderful if this finally changed.

Source: Koalicja Klimatyczna