Not long ago Poland embodied Europe’s worst nature-destroying tendencies.
Not only did our country consistently block progressive environmental laws within the European Union (EU), but it attracted widespread scorn for logging Europe’s “most precious” forest, Białowieża.
Białowieża is one of the last remaining fragments of primaeval forest in Europe and a Unesco World Heritage site, which has been protected for 500 years. Not surprisingly, a 2022 study found Poland to be the EU’s ‘least green country‘.
Our parliamentary election last October changed everything. The country’s highest turnout for more than a century turfed out the ruling nationalist populist government in favour of a liberal-left coalition, led by Donald Tusk. And the new government has made a 180 degree turn by initiating highly ambitious measures to safeguard nature.
These include protecting 20% of our most valuable forests from logging: equivalent to more than 1.4 million hectares of forest; restricting unprocessed wood exports; banning burning wood for energy in the commercial energy sector; giving citizens new rights to oversee forests, including being able to legally challenge how they are managed; and implementing a programme to restore wetlands and peatlands.
India wants its own solar industry but has to break reliance with China first
These rapid, bold moves come just as parts of Europe are moving in the opposite direction, with a growing backlash against policies to fight the climate crisis and protect the environment, vividly illustrated by the farmers’ protests which have erupted in France, Belgium and elsewhere.
Mass mobilisation
Białowieża was the catalyst for the change.
In 2016, during an outbreak of bark beetles which attacked spruces in Białowieża, Poland’s then Environment Minister used it as an excuse to justify logging in the prehistoric forest, known as Europe’s last frontier.
I was one of many people spurred to act. I gave up my job in tourism to join the protest camp in Białowieża, living there for eight months, joining fellow activists in patrolling the forest, making inventories of the logging and staging sit-ins to try to stop it.
The European Court of Justice ruled that Poland was breaching EU environmental law and that if it didn’t stop logging Białowieża, the government would be fined €100,000 ($107,000) a day. Eventually the Polish government caved in to the massive local mobilisation and international pressure, and stopped the logging.
“Shameful”: Shell uses carbon credits under investigation to meet climate targets
For much of Polish society, the case was a turning point.
Protests in both villages and cities across the country drew people who had never supported forest conservation before. Grassroots groups sprung up all over Poland. This wave of opposition against intensive logging grew to such an extent that there are now more than 100 groups campaigning against logging in specific local forests, and 85% of respondents to an opinion poll we commissioned in January 2024 said they were in favour of excluding 20% of the most precious forests in Poland from logging.
Subsequently, for the first time in Polish history, forest conservation became a major topic in our recent election. All the opposition parties who have now formed the ruling coalition had provisions for forest conservation in their electoral programmes. These are now being acted upon.
Public pressure is being translated into concrete action despite Poland having one of Europe’s biggest wood-processing industries. The new government – and we – are confident that it is possible to achieve forest conservation without harming the economy.
Pressure works
Poland shows that what seems impossible one moment can be realistic the next: that concerted civil society pressure really works, and that if people want pro-environmental policies they must pressure their governments to implement them.
Of course, as hopeful as recent developments are, they are just a start, and those who want to protect the natural world must remain vigilant. Events last year in the European Parliament show what’s at stake – and how politicians can be pushed by the prevailing tides, adopting different positions depending on the setting.
Last summer the centre-right European People’s Party (EPP) almost torpedoed one of the most crucial pieces of environmental legislation currently wending its way through the EU: the Nature Restoration Law (NRL). The EPP contains a number of Polish Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) from Civic Platform, part of the coalition government currently pushing through progressive forest protection policies and was once led by Donald Tusk.
The NRL would set binding targets for Member States to bring back nature across Europe, and is a central plank of Europe’s Green Deal. We now hope that the scrutiny Civic Platform is under in Poland, leads their MEPs to support nature in the EU, and push for progressive policies in Brussels as well as at home.
Poland’s transformation can be a beacon for others: showing how people can successfully mobilise to protect the ecosystems that humanity’s survival depends on.
Yet we’re under no illusions about the challenges we face. Our government’s bold decision to immediately ban logging in vast swathes of our forests is already facing resistance from the forestry sector and others.
This backlash against green policies is set to be one of the defining battles of the next few years. In Poland we’re doing all that we can to defend what’s already been achieved – and build on it.
Augustyn Mikos is a forest campaigner for Pracownia na rzecz Wszystkich Istot (Workshop for All Beings) and a former activist at the Camp for the Forest.
The post While Europe’s green backlash grows, Poland tells different story appeared first on Climate Home News.
While Europe’s green backlash grows, Poland tells different story
Saturday, 17 October 2026
7.18 AM AWST
Hi folks! We’re joining you live from the Rainbow Warrior where we will be providing you with updates as our four activists continue scaling and occupying Woodside’s gas platform. The activists are peacefully protesting against Woodside’s latest gas expansion plans, the Browse project, which would see up to 57 toxic wells drilled at Scott Reef.
“Right now our activists are scaling Woodside’s massive Floating Production Unit. They are scaling the South-East pillar and the underside of the Helideck. They’ll be setting up camp soon and have plenty of provisions with them – so stick around!”
5:45 AM AWST
Our RHIBS are in the water! We’ve deployed our four activists and our ship crew on our small fast boats, headed to the gas platform. We’re carrying crew and equipment, plenty of food, all of our safety climbing gear, some big banners, cameras and a whole lot of heart… someone even has something to read after they get settled in.
5:26 AM AWST
Before sunrise activists prepared to launch RHIBS from the Rainbow Warrior.
Looking for a front seat view?
You can follow along with the Live Rainbow Warrior bow cam here!
Looking for more?
Follow us on Instagram for a peek behind the scenes and hear from our Rainbow Warrior crew.
Live blog: Greenpeace activists occupy Woodside gas project to save Scott Reef
Climate Change
Greenpeace activists climb and occupy Woodside’s Scarborough gas project calling on the Australian government to “Stop Woodside’s Dirty Gas” and “Save Scott Reef”
PERTH, Saturday 17 October 2026 — Four Greenpeace Australia Pacific activists are scaling and occupying a Floating Production Unit at Woodside’s Scarborough gas project off the coast of Western Australia, displaying banners reading: “Stop Woodside’s Dirty Gas. Save Scott Reef.”
- Photos and video available here and here. More will be uploaded throughout the day.
- Content and live updates will be uploaded to a live blog and to Instagram
Early this morning at 05:45 AWST, Greenpeace Australia Pacific activists launched from the Rainbow Warrior, Greenpeace’s flagship vessel, scaling and attaching themselves to a Floating Production Unit (FPU), a key piece of gas processing infrastructure at the Scarborough gas field over 200km off the coast of Exmouth.
Woodside has since confirmed it has initiated a temporary shut down of the FPU.
Greenpeace Australia Pacific is occupying the gas platform in peaceful protest of Woodside’s plans to drill for oil and gas at Scott Reef as part of its Browse proposal.
David Ritter, CEO at Greenpeace Australia Pacific, said: “Greenpeace Australia Pacific is taking action today to expose the unacceptable risk to Scott Reef posed by Woodside’s plans.
“Australians love our oceans. Woodside’s reckless Browse gas proposal would turn the magnificent Scott Reef into an industrial gas zone. Woodside wants to drill up to 57 toxic wells around Scott Reef, Australia’s largest oceanic reef, home to nesting green sea turtles, and endangered species like pygmy blue whales and the dusky sea snake; it is a place like nowhere else on Earth.
“Woodside has an alarming track record of oil spills, incidents and environmental neglect, and can’t be trusted with our oceans. From whaling in Albany in the seventies, to Woodside’s threat to Scott Reef today, there’s more than fifty years of history, of Greenpeace taking action off WA’s coasts to protect our oceans.
“There’s no future in new gas projects. Our future is in secure homegrown renewable energy, green industry and exports, where communities and places like Scott Reef are protected — there’s no future in dirty gas shipped offshore.
“The prospect of drilling for oil or gas on the Great Barrier Reef would be considered absolute madness today, but that is exactly the decision before the government: save Scott Reef or risk its destruction at the hands of a gas corporation.”
From aboard the Floating Production Unit, Dr Chris Holden, Greenpeace Australia Pacific activist said: “As a doctor, when I see new fossil fuel projects like Woodside’s Browse project being put forward, I can’t help but think about the impact this is going to have on the health of our communities and planet, and feel a sense of duty to act.
“Not only will this project do irrevocable harm to nature at Scott Reef, it will have a terrible impact on our climate, putting all of our lives at risk.
“On the Rainbow Warrior I’m carrying a copy of the 2025 Lancet countdown report, which warns that health impacts of climate change are worsening, with millions dying needlessly each year due to fossil fuel dependence, growing emissions, and failure to adequately adapt.
“With warnings like this from the leading global health professionals, our government simply can’t allow fossil fuel projects like Woodside’s Browse project to go ahead. It is their duty to do what is in the best interest of our communities.”
Almost half a million people have signed a petition calling on the government to Save Scott Reef and Woodside’s Browse gas project.
-ENDS-
Notes:
- Dial-in, SimSat and Zoom interviews with Geoff Bice, WA Campaign Lead at Greenpeace Australia Pacific, currently aboard the Rainbow Warrior, can be organised separately
Media contact:
Greenpeace Australia Pacific media team on +61 406 231 892 or +61 407 581 404
The board of the Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage (FRLD) will decide on Thursday on whether to “provisionally set aside” $20 million for Nepal to deal with some of the effects of the climate-driven flood it suffered in August.
The motion, seen by Climate Home News, has been drafted by a group of board members from both developed and developing countries and so is likely to pass easily at the fund’s first-ever extraordinary board meeting on October 22.
It invites the government of Nepal to submit a proposal for how to use the money, with the board then deciding at one of its regular board meetings whether to approve the proposal or not.
While Nepali officials have described $20 million as merely “symbolic” in the face of the $4.8 billion estimated costs of recovery and reconstruction, it would be the first time the new FRLD – agreed in 2022 months after devastating floods in Pakistan – has set aside money for a specific disaster.
Until now the fund has only taken requests through a single call for proposals, launched at COP30 in Belém last November, that gave countries six months to submit requests.
Most of the 180 projects the FRLD is currently considering are designed to help countries avoid damage from future climate disasters, for example by strengthening responses to floods in Bangladesh and Lagos.
The draft decision says Nepal’s proposal will serve as a pilot for how funding requests can be submitted outside of the fund’s current timetable. That could let governments seek funds quickly after a climate disaster strikes, rather than waiting for the next call.
This arrangement would set the fund apart from other United Nations funds designed for climate adaptation or cutting emissions like the Green Climate Fund.
Climate campaigners from Fill the Fund said the draft decision is “a real step forward” as it is “the first time this Fund has moved to respond to a specific disaster”.
Too little, too late
The FRLD was agreed by governments at COP27, set up and operationalised at COP28 in 2023 but has yet to award any money. The 180 funding requests it is currently considering would cost around $2.8 billion, but it only has $350 million to allocate.
The United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres has described the amount of money available in the fund as “ridiculously small” and Fill the Fund said $20 million “is a meaningful signal but it is a drop against an ocean of need”.
A glacial rock and ice collapse sent a torrent of water and debris through Nepal and the Chinese-administered region of Tibet on August 26. It killed more than 1,400 people, left thousands more missing and destroyed homes, bridges, roads and hydropower plants. Nepal’s finance and environment ministers quickly appealed to the FRLD board for funds, saying that “time is of the essence”.
Their call was followed swiftly by a letter from developing country FRLD board members urging the board’s co-chairs to organise an extraordinary meeting to allocate funds to Nepal.
But developed countries initially called for an informal consultation rather than a full board meeting. It took a further 45 days for the board’s co-chairs to organise an extraordinary board meeting for October 22 and to draft a motion for adoption.
Fill the Fund called for a permanent way of the fund rapid responding to disasters as “Nepal should not have required historic letters, an informal drafting group and the Fund’s first-ever extraordinary meeting simply to unlock an emergency response. The next country cannot wait two months and a bureaucratic marathon. Speed must be built in, not improvised.”
The post UN’s loss and damage fund set to give Nepal $20m for flood recovery appeared first on Climate Home News.
UN’s loss and damage fund set to give Nepal $20m for flood recovery
Is a Team of Is a Bunch of MAGA Thugs Beating the Snot Out of a Woman a New Low, or Is it What We Now Need to Expect?
