Peaceful Greenpeace protesters were met with violence by Poznan miners on Monday, as they attempted to write STOP next to a huge bulldozer, used for coal transport. The miners prevented the activists from protesting and removed them from the area. Police arrived at the scene shortly and separated the two groups. This clash is symbolic to the larger one, the UN conference on climate change, scheduled to take place here between the 1st and the 12th of December.

 

"Our action is not against the miners but it is addressed to the Polish government. We demand that the forthcoming Polish energy policy contain a concrete plan for quitting coal and implementing renewable energy and energy efficiency. We also object to opening any new power plants working for lignite. Lignite is the most destructive fuel," said Polish Climate and Energy campaigner, Magdalena Zowsik, in a Greenpeace statement.

 

The activists were all Polish, based at the Greenpeace Climate Rescue Station, which was set up some two weeks ago near the open-pit Jozwin mine, near Poznan. "This is a protest against burning coal and against extracting coal from a mine like this one. We were stopped violently by miners, but fortunately nobody was hurt," said Jacek Winiarski, a spokesman for Greenpeace Poland.

 

"Poland and the world need an energy revolution, not more of the same. The science is unequivocal, if we try to continue burning coal we will do untold damage to the planet," Zowsik explained.

 

But Konin, the coal company that operates Jozwin, said that it had plans of opening a second exploitation site nearby, which would be designed as an open-pit mine as well. "We don't plan to scrap this project. Why should we? We will open the site in two to three years' time. Usually such mines operate for 15 to 20 years," a company spokesman told Reuters. He also added that his enterprise had all the necessary documents for the opening of the second mine.

 

The thing is, the two mines will border Lake Goplo, which was listed on the European Unions' Nature 2000 program, for protecting large amounts of endangered species. Chances are, with both mines operating at full capacity, the natural habitat around the exploitations will be thoroughly and methodically destroyed.