Published

2 years ago

February 5, 2024

Alice Rush

Not long ago Poland embodied Europe’s worst nature-destroying tendencies.

Not only did our country consistently block progressive environmenta l 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.

So what drove Poland’s sharp change of direction? And what lessons does it hold in a Europe where anti-green policies are becoming a bitterly contested electoral battleground?

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.

Rich nations miss loss and damage fund deadline

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

Climate Change

A Tiny Caribbean Island Sued the Netherlands Over Climate Change, and Won

Published

10 hours ago

February 28, 2026

Alice Rush

The case shows that climate change is a fundamental human rights violation—and the victory of Bonaire, a Dutch territory, could open the door for similar lawsuits globally.

Interview by Paloma Beltran, Living on Earth

From our collaborating partner Living on Earth, public radio’s environmental news magazine, an interview by Paloma Beltran with Greenpeace Netherlands campaigner Eefje de Kroon.

A Tiny Caribbean Island Sued the Netherlands Over Climate Change, and Won

Climate Change

Greenpeace organisations to appeal USD $345 million court judgment in Energy Transfer’s intimidation lawsuit

Published

15 hours ago

February 28, 2026

Alice Rush

SYDNEY, Saturday 28 February 2026 — Greenpeace International and Greenpeace organisations in the US announce they will seek a new trial and, if necessary, appeal the decision with the North Dakota Supreme Court following a North Dakota District Court judgment today awarding Energy Transfer (ET) USD $345 million.

ET’s SLAPP suit remains a blatant attempt to silence free speech, erase Indigenous leadership of the Standing Rock movement, and punish solidarity with peaceful resistance to the Dakota Access Pipeline. Greenpeace International will also continue to seek damages for ET’s bullying lawsuits under EU anti-SLAPP legislation in the Netherlands.

Mads Christensen, Greenpeace International Executive Director said: “Energy Transfer’s attempts to silence us are failing. Greenpeace International will continue to resist intimidation tactics. We will not be silenced. We will only get louder, joining our voices to those of our allies all around the world against the corporate polluters and billionaire oligarchs who prioritise profits over people and the planet.

“With hard-won freedoms under threat and the climate crisis accelerating, the stakes of this legal fight couldn’t be higher. Through appeals in the US and Greenpeace International’s groundbreaking anti-SLAPP case in the Netherlands, we are exploring every option to hold Energy Transfer accountable for multiple abusive lawsuits and show all power-hungry bullies that their attacks will only result in a stronger people-powered movement.”

The Court’s final judgment today rejects some of the jury verdict delivered in March 2025, but still awards hundreds of millions of dollars to ET without a sound basis in law. The Greenpeace defendants will continue to press their arguments that the US Constitution does not allow liability here, that ET did not present evidence to support its claims, that the Court admitted inflammatory and irrelevant evidence at trial and excluded other evidence supporting the defense, and that the jury pool in Mandan could not be impartial.[1][2]

ET’s back-to-back lawsuits against Greenpeace International and the US organisations Greenpeace USA (Greenpeace Inc.) and Greenpeace Fund are clear-cut examples of SLAPPs — lawsuits attempting to bury nonprofits and activists in legal fees, push them towards bankruptcy and ultimately silence dissent.[3] Greenpeace International, which is based in the Netherlands, is pursuing justice in Europe, with a suit against ET under Dutch law and the European Union’s new anti-SLAPP directive, a landmark test of the new legislation which could help set a powerful precedent against corporate bullying.[4]

Kate Smolski, Program Director at Greenpeace Australia Pacific, said: “This is part of a worrying trend globally: fossil fuel corporations are increasingly using litigation to attack and silence ordinary people and groups using the law to challenge their polluting operations — and we’re not immune to these tactics here in Australia.

“Rulings like this have a chilling effect on democracy and public interest litigation — we must unite against these silencing tactics as bad for Australians and bad for our democracy. Our movement is stronger than any corporate bully, and grows even stronger when under attack.”

Energy Transfer’s SLAPPs are part of a wave of abusive lawsuits filed by Big Oil companies like Shell, Total, and ENI against Greenpeace entities in recent years.[3] A couple of these cases have been successfully stopped in their tracks. This includes Greenpeace France successfully defeating TotalEnergies’ SLAPP on 28 March 2024, and Greenpeace UK and Greenpeace International forcing Shell to back down from its SLAPP on 10 December 2024.

-ENDS-

Images available in Greenpeace Media Library

Notes:

[1] The judgment entered by North Dakota District Court Judge Gion follows a jury verdict finding Greenpeace entities liable for more than US$660 million on March 19, 2025. Judge Gion subsequently threw out several items from the jury’s verdict, reducing the total damages to approximately US$345 million.

[2] Public statements from the independent Trial Monitoring Committee

[3] Energy Transfer’s first lawsuit was filed in federal court in 2017 under the RICO Act – the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, a US federal statute designed to prosecute mob activity. The case was dismissed in 2019, with the judge stating the evidence fell “far short” of what was needed to establish a RICO enterprise. The federal court did not decide on Energy Transfer’s claims based on state law, so Energy Transfer promptly filed a new case in a North Dakota state court with these and other state law claims.

[4] Greenpeace International sent a Notice of Liability to Energy Transfer on 23 July 2024, informing the pipeline giant of Greenpeace International’s intention to bring an anti-SLAPP lawsuit against the company in a Dutch Court. After Energy Transfer declined to accept liability on multiple occasions (September 2024, December 2024), Greenpeace International initiated the first test of the European Union’s anti-SLAPP Directive on 11 February 2025 by filing a lawsuit in Dutch court against Energy Transfer. The case was officially registered in the docket of the Court of Amsterdam on 2 July, 2025. Greenpeace International seeks to recover all damages and costs it has suffered as a result of Energy Transfers’s back-to-back, abusive lawsuits demanding hundreds of millions of dollars from Greenpeace International and the Greenpeace organisations in the US. The next hearing in the Court of Amsterdam is scheduled for 16 April, 2026.

Media contact:

Kate O’Callaghan on 0406 231 892 or kate.ocallaghan@greenpeace.org

Greenpeace organisations to appeal USD $345 million court judgment in Energy Transfer’s intimidation lawsuit

Climate Change

Former EPA Staff Detail Expanding Pollution Risks Under Trump

Published

15 hours ago

February 28, 2026

Alice Rush

The Trump administration’s relentless rollback of public health and environmental protections has allowed widespread toxic exposures to flourish, warn experts who helped implement safeguards now under assault.

By Liza Gross

In a new report that outlines a dozen high-risk pollutants given new life thanks to weakened, delayed or rescinded regulations, the Environmental Protection Network, a nonprofit, nonpartisan group of hundreds of former Environmental Protection Agency staff, warns that the EPA under President Donald Trump has abandoned the agency’s core mission of protecting people and the environment from preventable toxic exposures.