Getting the European Commission's 2040 climate target over the line this week was not an easy task for EU environment ministers.
It took 18 hours of talks in Brussels for member states to support, by qualified majority, the Commission's proposal to cut carbon emissions by 90% by 2040, compared to 1990 levels.
It was a slightly watered-down deal with the text outlining that member states will be able to outsource up to 5% of their carbon emissions reduction efforts to non-EU countries through a system of international credits.
But four central and eastern European member states - Poland, Czechia, Hungary and Slovakia - did not sign up to the text.
Last Tuesday morning, even as EU environment ministers met in Brussels, Polish environment minister Paulina Hennig-Kloska, who had stayed in Warsaw, was telling an interviewer on Polish radio station RMF that Poland would vote against the 2040 target of 90%.
"These types of goals for countries like ours are too ambitious," she said.
In simple terms, the Polish government was looking for more time and more money to make the transition.
Ms Hennig-Kloska had sent her deputy climate minister, Krzysztof Bolesta, to Brussels to deliver the Polish government's position.
"We don't want to destroy the economy. We don't want to destroy the climate. We want to save both at the same time," he told reporters in Brussels.
Similarly, Czechia, Hungary and Slovakia claim that changes needed to reduce carbon emissions by 90% will be too costly to achieve by 2040 and could damage industry competitiveness in the process.
"Unrealistic" is how the Czech environment minister described the 90% target, saying it would have a major impact on key Czech industries such as chemical and materials production.
Poland's pro-EU coalition government has pushed to increase the share of renewables in the country’s energy mix since coming to power in late 2023 and continued an ongoing trend of reducing coal's once dominant role in generating the country's electricity grid.
A decade ago, coal generated about 80% of Poland’s electricity needs. Today, that share has fallen to just over 50%.
Meanwhile, the share of renewables in energy generation has increased year-on-year from about 15% in 2015 to 34% in 2024, according to data from Polish energy think tank Forum Energii.
There has been a boom in photovoltaic heating systems in Poland in past few years as well as heavy investment in off-shore wind farms.
Poland’s largest energy companies are investing heavily in renewable energy too. Orlen, the largest Polish energy company, has committed to investing 300bn zloty (€70bn) on renewables and the decarbonisation of its current assets by 2035.
So, despite moving towards diversification, why has there being such opposition from Warsaw and other governments in the region to the emission targets?
The first reason is due to legacy energy infrastructure in urban areas.
Polish cities and large towns operate on centralised heating systems that are highly dependent on coal.
It’s a system that is common across central and eastern Europe, constructed by the region’s Communist-era governments to heat enormous blocks of social housing and generate power for nearby factories at the time.
"You cannot just easily switch from a big heat power plant somewhere in a big city like Warsaw to a big heat pump, or even a network of heat pumps," Wojciech Jakobik, a Polish energy analyst, told RTÉ News.
"You would need to totally re-project the network. And we have some estimations from Polish industry that it would take billions."
In the apartment where I live in Warsaw, the heating is always on from mid-October to late March. It can be regulated by radiator but the heat source remains available.
The system keeps apartments very warm during cold winter days when the temperature drops below zero Celsius but requires a constant base load capacity, which is not the most energy-efficient system on mild winter days.
But Communist-era heating systems can also be found in the Baltic states where winters can be even harsher, and their governments backed the 90% target. So a colder climate alone does not explain why the four central and eastern EU members did not back the text.
High energy prices contributing to objections
A second reason for Poland and the Czech Republic's objections to reducing carbon emissions by 2040 comes in the form of current high energy prices.
Soaring energy prices have affected most European markets since the pandemic and the start of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. However, Polish and Czech consumers have felt the pinch more than others, largely because of the high proportion of coal in their energy mix.
Eurostat data for electricity prices in purchasing power standard show that consumers in the Czech Republic, followed by Poland pay the highest prices for electricity in the EU.
Italy follows in third place.
Ireland places just above mid-table whereas Finland, Hungary and Malta are the cheapest.
"In general, people are not willing to pay more, even for the sake of the climate. That's the way it is in Poland right now," said Mr Jakobik, the founder of Energy Security Center, a Polish watchdog.
"It's not about the coal lobby anymore. It is about people discontent with the economic situation," he said.
Levying additional fees on consumers and businesses to cover the cost of reducing emissions would be unpopular with electorate in Poland, and the main parties are keenly aware of this.
Similar political concerns shaped the outgoing centre-right Czech government's policy towards the Commission's 90% emission's target.
High prices for food, energy and housing were key issues in last month's Czech parliamentary election, which was won by the populist ANO party, led by Andrej Babiš, a billionaire businessman and former prime minister.
Mr Babiš, a eurosceptic who opposes the EU's Green Deal, struck a coalition deal with two fringe right-wing parties, one of which is The Motorists for Themselves party, and they should form a government in the coming weeks.
As their name indicates, The Motorists are a pro-car party that opposes the EU's plan to ban internal combustion engines by 2035, opposes electric vehicles and green policies in general.
The new coalition's programme for government says it will create conditions for the development of renewable energy sources and also plans to maintain coal-fired power plants "until sufficient additional stable energy sources are available".
"We will promote a realistic and stable energy mix in which, in addition to low-emission technologies (nuclear and renewable energy sources), coal and gas also have their place," reads the programme.
All Czech political parties, bar the country's small Green party, are in favour of further developing the country's nuclear energy capacity beyond current output levels at two nuclear power plants.
"Czech politicians are generally more sceptical towards climate targets than other European countries," said Filip Nerad, communications director and foreign policy analyst with GLOBESEC, a think tank.
"There's a common view [among Czech political parties] that all of these energy steps will make energy more expensive".
Similarly, the current eurosceptic Slovak government said reaching the 90% target by 2040 would damage European industry at a time when energy prices are high.
Hungary also argued that the 90% target would make it difficult for industry to compete.
During this week's climate discussions, Poland was also among a bloc of countries that included Italy, the Czech Republic and Romania, to successfully push for a one year postponement of the EU Emissions Trading System for buildings and road transport (ETS2) until 2028.
ETS2 is an emissions trading system that will require firms to buy allowances for each unit of CO2 that they emit. The idea is that the allowances would be capped and, as emissions decrease, the cap would then be lowered at various stages. Lowering the cap should, in theory, give firms an incentive to reduce their emissions.
But there is a sense among many big businesses in Poland that the financial burden associated with investing in energy transition would be much greater than the support promised under ETS2.
The incoming Czech coalition's programme for government also states its opposition to ETS2 and the parties say they won't implement it.
In Poland's case, there is a third reason why it opposed the 90% target: the country's upsurge on defence spending since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
The production of heavy military equipment and ammunition is rooted in the use of fossil fuels.
"It is great to have a clean planet and to work on it, but we lack assessment when it comes to the economic consequences, especially when we compete with the US, with China, and when we have a military crisis 500 kilometres from Warsaw," said Mr Jakobik.
