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In a cosy cinema room at the Bełchatów coal-fired power station in central Poland, a promotional video played to curious visitors boasts that the open-pit mine which feeds the power station is one of the largest holes ever dug in the ground. 

The caverns of the Bełchatów coal mine are wide enough to fit around 5,000 full-sized football pitches and are rich in lignite – a soft, brown and wet type of coal which looks and feels like tree bark but is particularly damaging to human health when burned.

After more than 40 years of mining, the lignite is running out and plans are being made to wind down operations at the site.

PGE, the Polish state-owned utility which runs the mine and adjacent power plant – the largest and dirtiest in Europe – has a 45-year plan to turn the mining pits into the country’s deepest lake and the coal heaps into a series of hills for recreational use. 

In 2070, PGE envisions visitors will be able to ski in the winter, golf, cycle, kayak, quad-bike, horse ride, climb and even scuba dive down to see the soon-to-be-underwater old mining machines.

PGE’s visualisation of what the redeveloped Bełchatów site will look like (Photos: PGE)

But local governments officials and researchers warn that the plans risk failing to deliver the green and economically fair transition deserved by Bełchatów communities whose livelihoods have depended on coal. They argue the plans could waste the site’s huge renewable energy potential while the tourist attraction fails to replace the at least 7,500 jobs that will be lost when the mine and power plant close, potentially driving away the region’s young people.  

As deputy director of the Just Transition Fund Department of Łódź province where Bełchatów is located, Malgorzata Misiak’s job is to cushion the blow of the region’s transition away from coal and make sure the benefits of what replaces it are shared as equally as possible.

She told Climate Home PGE’s plan to let the mine gradually fill over decades overlooks the many more jobs that could be created in a much shorter time-frame with renewable energy investment.

Anabella Rosemberg, a senior adviser on just transition at Climate Action Network International, said: “PGE is pledging an investment on a timeline by which time all its executives will be retired, so won’t be held accountable if it fails. By then, the communities dependent on Bełchatów would have already joined the thousands considering that the transition is paid by poor people.”

Forum Energii analyst Aleksandra Gawlikowska-Fyk warned that PGE’s plan would also overlook the region’s need for clean energy.

PGE did not respond to a request from Climate Home for comment for this article, while a spokesperson for the white-collar Kadra trade union declined to comment by the time of publication.

Europe’s biggest polluter

Opened in what was then the Polish Peoples’ Republic in 1980, Bełchatów (pronounced Bel-hat-ov) grew to become the biggest coal mine and coal power station in Europe. It still employs about 7,500 people directly today and sustains many more jobs indirectly. 

In recent years, the power plant has produced nearly a fifth of Poland’s electricity. Its importance to the nation’s energy security is such that, given the perceived threat from Russian spies, visitors including Climate Home News, are warned not to publish any photos of the site. 

Because of its size, and coal’s status as the top polluting fossil fuel, Bełchatów is also by far Europe’s biggest greenhouse gas emitter. Its power plant pumps out 35 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent a year – more than Mozambique’s total emissions. 


But its coal is running out and because lignite is very difficult to transport, both the mine and power plant will soon shut down – although exactly when is unclear.

The local government’s 2021 just transition plan says the coal plant will gradually scale down operations through the 2030s until its closure in 2036, while mining will end by 2038.

For Misiak, this is the “official reality” – but in practice, things could turn out differently. “The real pace is dependent on many factors,” she said.

Two hours down the road from Bełchatów, Rybnik coal power plant was scheduled to close in 2030. Last month, PGE announced it would shut by the end of 2025 instead. The chair of Poland’s Solidarity trade union called it a “catastrophe for the region” as about 500 jobs will be lost at the plant, with more in the nearby mines and other suppliers. 

People in Bełchatów fear the same fate, Misiak said. Researchers at the University of Łódź and a women’s community group called ‘Yes for Bełchatów’ conducted a survey of over 350 local women earlier this year for a report on the gender aspects of the region’s transition away from coal. It found they “are really afraid of negative consequences”.

From pits to ponds

Turning the mine into a leisure park offers a “nice picture” of what environmental rehabilitation can achieve, said Misiak. But the timescale involved is so long that it doesn’t offer the thousands of people who still earn their living from coal jobs any viable alternatives. 

“People will not wait for work in tourism,” she said, adding “they will die” before then. 

Even if the project did get off the ground, activities such as scuba diving and kayaking might not be an economic match for what the coal industry has been to the region in recent times, she said. 

Over a lunch of dumplings and cheesecake in a hotel near the mine, Misiak delivered a presentation on Bełchatów’s transition to researchers who had travelled to Poland from around the world to learn about its approach to supporting communities affected by the shift away from coal.

The word “depopulation” followed by three exclamation marks stood out on one of her slides. The University of Łódź study found that young women in the region are already leaving for big cities inside Poland or going abroad, leaving behind an ageing community.

And the outflow of people could get worse. The researchers surveyed 65 women working in the energy industry – of which nearly a third said they were planning to leave the region when the mine and power plant shut down.

Listening to Misiak’s presentation in the hotel was Martha Mendrofa, of the Indonesian Institute for Essential Services Reform. Indonesian coal companies too have rehabilitated old mines as tourism assets, she said – from opening mining museums to eco-tourism experiences.

But the number of jobs and revenue generated has not met locals’ expectations nor made-up for the lost coal industry, she said.

The Geierswalder lake in Germany is on the site of an old coal mine, photographed on August 24, 2024 (Photo: IMAGO/Max Gaertner/via Reuters Connect)

In Germany and Australia, old coal mines have also been turned into lakes.

But converting the Polish site into a clean-energy generation hub would be a better long-term investment for the region, Misiak said.

A 2022 analysis by BloombergNEF (BNEF) lays out what replacing the coal mine and plant with solar and wind power, along with a bit of nuclear or gas generation, might look like.

It found that 6-11 gigawatts (GW) of renewable energy capacity could be built on the site, exceeding the coal plant’s 5 GW. But currently PGE plans to install just 0.7 GW of renewables capacity. Gawlikowska-Fyk said this was “far less than needed in the region and far less than possible”.

The BNEF report said solar panels could be installed on the shallower edges of the mine and around the main pits. As rainwater fills the deeper pits, floating solar farms could also be considered. “PGE could go significantly beyond its current plan to build [0.6 GW] of solar at Bełchatów,” the BNEF report concluded. The region could produce 5-15 GW of wind power too, it found.

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Like all fossil-fuel power plants, Bełchatów is already equipped with infrastructure like transmission lines designed to transport electricity from where is is produced to where it is needed, such as the nearby steel mill in Częstochowa.

Permanently ending power generation on the site would let this expensive infrastructure go to waste, the BNEF analysis warned. 

Outside of energy

Installing renewable energy infrastructure might create more local jobs than PGE’s lake plans, but even this might not be enough to replace lost coal employment, Misiak said. 

Ensuring the region isn’t left behind in the energy transition would require attracting other investors and stimulating small businesses, she added.

Fortunately, Poland has access to European pots of funding for that purpose. The European Union’s Just Transition Fund is giving the province €369 million ($400m) to invest in activities like support for small businesses, research laboratories, retraining coal workers and deploying electric buses. Poland as a whole will get €3.85 billion ($4.16bn) to move to a lower-carbon economic model.

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The EU’s funds will stretch to pay for training, including driving lessons, to help local people find new jobs and cover entrepreneurs’ childcare so they can keep their businesses open longer, said Misiak. 

The Polish government offers coal miners “generous” retraining opportunities, severance payments and pension schemes, she said, adding that the Belchatów miners will be comfortable in their retirement. But money isn’t everything – and many will feel “frustrated” at being jobless after years of hard graft, she explained.

Elsewhere around the world, governments are trying to transition communities away from coal without the huge resources Belchatów can tap into to help them.

Indonesia, for example, has a donor-backed Just Energy Transition Partnership bringing in billions of dollars from wealthy governments like the EU and international investors – but that money is likely to come mostly as loans for energy infrastructure. According to researcher Mendrofa, there is nothing like the EU’s Just Transition Fund with its emphasis on social justice.

“The money we do have right now is not really focused on the socioeconomic aspect of coal transitions,” she said, “so it’s very interesting for me to see how the money can be a catalyst for the economic transformations agenda.”

(Reporting by Joe Lo; editing by Chloe Farand and Megan Rowling)

The post Plans to turn Europe’s biggest coal mine into a leisure lake prove divisive appeared first on Climate Home News.

Plans to turn Europe’s biggest coal mine into a leisure lake prove divisive

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UN’s new carbon market delivers first credits through Myanmar cookstove project

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February 26, 2026

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A cleaner cooking initiative in Myanmar is set to generate the first-ever batch of carbon credits under the new UN carbon market, more than a decade after the mechanism was first envisioned in the Paris Agreement.

The Article 6.4 Supervisory Body has approved the issuance of 60,000 credits, which correspond to tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent reduced by distributing more efficient cookstoves that need less firewood and, therefore, ease pressure on carbon-storing forests, the project developers say. The approval of the credit issuance will become effective after a 28‑day appeal and grievance period.

The programme started in 2019 under the previous UN-run carbon offsetting scheme – the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) – and is being implemented by a South Korean NGO with investment from private South Korean firms.

The credits are expected to be used primarily by major South Korean polluters to meet obligations under the country’s emissions trading system – a move that will also enable the government to count those units toward emissions reduction targets in its nationally determined contribution (NDC), the UN climate body told Climate Home News.

Myanmar will use the remaining credits to achieve in part the goals of its national climate plan.

Making ‘a big difference’

The approval of the credits issuance represents a major milestone for the UN carbon market established under article 6.4 of the Paris Agreement. By generating carbon credits that both governments and private firms can use, the mechanism aims to accelerate global climate action and channel additional finance to developing nations.

    UNFCCC chief Simon Stiell said the approval of the first credits from a clean cooking project shows “how this mechanism can support solutions that make a big difference in people’s daily lives, as well as channeling finance to where it delivers real-life benefits on the ground”.

    “Over two billion people globally are without access to clean cooking, which kills millions every year. Clean cooking protects health, saves forests, cuts emissions and helps empower women and girls, who are typically hardest hit by household air pollution,” he added in a statement.

    Concerns over clean cookstove credits

    Carbon markets are seen as an important channel to raise money to help low-income communities in developing countries switch to less polluting cooking methods. Proceeds from the sale of carbon credits made up 35% of the revenue generated by for-profit clean cooking companies in 2023, according to a report by the Clean Cooking Initiative.

    But many cookstove offsetting projects have faced significant criticism from researchers and campaigners who argue that climate benefits are often exaggerated and weak monitoring can undermine claims of real emission reductions. Their main criticism is that the rules allow project developers to overestimate the impact of fuel collection on deforestation, while relying on surveys to track stove usage that are prone to bias and can further inflate reported impacts.

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    The project in Myanmar follows a contested methodology developed under the Kyoto Protocol that was rejected last year by The Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market (ICVCM), a watchdog that issues quality labels to carbon credit types, because it is “insufficiently rigorous”.

    An analysis conducted last year by Brussels-based NGO Carbon Market Watch claimed that the project would generate 26 times more credits than it should, when comparing its calculations with values from peer-reviewed scientific literature.

    ‘Conservative’ values cut credit volume

    But, after transitioning from the CDM to the new mechanism, the project applied updated values and “more conservative” assumptions to calculate emission reductions, according to the UNFCCC, which added that this resulted in 40% fewer credits being issued than would have been the case in the CDM.

    “The result is consistent with environmental integrity requirements and ensures that each credited tonne genuinely represents a tonne reduced and contributes to the goals of the Paris Agreement,” said Mkhuthazi Steleki, the South African chair of article 6.4 Supervisory Body, which oversees the mechanism.

    Over 1,500 projects originally developed under the CDM requested the transition to the new mechanism, including controversial schemes subsidising fossil gas-powered plants in China and India. But, so far, the transfer of only 165 of all those projects has been approved by their respective host nations, which have until the end of June to make a final decision.

    The UN climate body said this means that “a wide variety of real-world climate projects are already in line to follow” in sectors such as renewable energy, waste management and agriculture. But the transfer of old programmes from the CDM has long been contested with critics arguing that weak and discredited rules allow projects to overestimate emission reductions.

    Genuinely new projects unrelated to the CDM are expected to start operating under the Paris Agreement mechanism once the Supervisory Body approves the first custom-made methodologies.

    The post UN’s new carbon market delivers first credits through Myanmar cookstove project appeared first on Climate Home News.

    UN’s new carbon market delivers first credits through Myanmar cookstove project

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    Equity, Benefit-Sharing and Financial Architecture in the International Seabed Area

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    February 26, 2026

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    A new independent study by Dr Harvey Mpoto Bombaka (Centro Universitário de Brasília) and Dr Ben Tippet (King’s College London), commissioned by Greenpeace International, reveals that current International Seabed Authority revenue-sharing proposals would return virtually nothing to developing countries — despite the requirement under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) that deep sea mining must benefit humankind as a whole.
    Instead, the analysis shows that the overwhelming economic value would flow to a handful of private corporations, primarily headquartered in the Global North.

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    Equity, Benefit-Sharing and Financial Architecture in the International Seabed Area

    Executive Summary: Equity, Benefit-Sharing and Financial Architecture in the International Seabed Area

    https://www.greenpeace.org.au/greenpeace-reports/equity-benefit-sharing-and-financial-architecture-in-the-international-seabed-area/

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    Pacific nations would be paid only thousands for deep sea mining, while mining companies set to make billions, new research reveals

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    February 26, 2026

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    SYDNEY/FIJI, Thursday 26 February 2026 — New independent research commissioned by Greenpeace International has revealed that Pacific Island states would receive mere thousands of dollars in payment from deep sea mining per year, placing the region as one of the most affected but worst-off beneficiaries in the world.

    The research by legal professor Dr Harvey Mpoto Bombaka and development economist Dr Ben Tippet reveals that mechanisms proposed by the International Seabed Authority (ISA) for sharing any future revenues from deep sea mining would leave developing nations with meagre, token payments. Pacific Island nations would receive only USD $46,000 per year in the short term, then USD $241,000 per year in the medium term, averaging out to barely USD $382,000 per year for 28 years – an entire annual income for a nation that is less than some individual CEOs’ salaries. Mining companies would rake in over USD $13.5 billion per year, taking up to 98% of the revenues.

    The analysis shows that under a scenario where six deep sea mining sites begin operating in the early 2030s, the revenues that states would actually receive are extraordinarily small. This is in contrast to the clear mandate of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), which requires mining to be carried out for the benefit of humankind as a whole.[1] The real beneficiaries, the research shows, would be, yet again, a handful of corporations in the Global North.

    Head of Pacific at Greenpeace Australia Pacific Shiva Gounden, said:
    “What the Pacific is being promised amounts to little more than scraps. The people of the Pacific would sacrifice the most and receive the least if deep sea mining goes ahead. We are being asked to trade in our spiritual and cultural connection to our oceans, and risk our livelihoods and food sources, for almost nothing in return.

    “The deep sea mining industry has manipulated the Pacific and has lied to our people for too long, promising prosperity and jobs that simply do not exist. The wealthy CEOs and deep sea mining companies will pocket the cash while the people of the Pacific see no material benefits. The Pacific will not benefit from deep sea mining, and our sacrifice is too big to allow it to go ahead. The Pacific Ocean is not a commodity, and it is not for sale.”

    Using proposals submitted by the ISA’s Finance Committee between 2022 and 2025, the returns to states barely register in national accounts. After administrative costs, institutional expenses, and compensation funds are deducted, little, if anything, remains to distribute [3].

    Author Dr Harvey Mpoto Bombaka of the Centro Universitário de Brasília said:

    “What’s described as global benefit-sharing based on equity and intergenerational justice increasingly looks like a framework for managing scarcity that would deliver almost no real benefits to anyone other than the deep sea mining industry. The structural limitations of the proposed mechanism would offer little more than symbolic returns to the rest of the world, particularly developing countries lacking technological and financial capacity.”

    The ISA will meet in March for its first session of the year. Currently, 40 countries back a moratorium or precautionary pause on deep sea mining.

    Gounden added: “The deep sea belongs to all humankind, and our people take great pride in being the custodians of our Pacific Ocean. Protecting this with everything we have is not only fair and responsible but what we see as our ancestral duty. The only equitable path is to leave the minerals where they are and stop deep sea mining before it starts. 

    “The decision on the future of the ocean must be a process that centres the rights and voices of Pacific communities as the traditional custodians. Clearly, deep sea mining will not benefit the Pacific, and the only sensible way forward is a moratorium.”

    —ENDS—

    Notes

    [1] A key condition for governments to permit deep sea mining to start in the international seabed is that it ‘be carried out for the benefit of mankind as a whole’, particularly developing nations, according to international law (Article 136-140, 148, 150, and 160(2)(g), the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea).

    For more information or to arrange an interview, please contact Kimberley Bernard on +61407 581 404 or kbernard@greenpeace.org

    Pacific nations would be paid only thousands for deep sea mining, while mining companies set to make billions, new research reveals

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