Environment at a Glance Indicators

Report

16 October 2024

Poland

This country profile features selected environmental indicators from the OECD Core Set, building on harmonised datasets available on OECD Data Explorer. The indicators reflect major environmental issues, including climate, air quality, freshwater resources, waste and the circular economy, and biodiversity. Differences with national data sources can occur due to delays in data treatment and publication, or due to different national definitions and measurement methods. The OECD is working with countries and other international organisations to further improve the indicators and the underlying data.

Context

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Poland is a Central European country on the Baltic Sea, bordered by seven countries. With a total area of 312 679 km², Poland is the ninth-largest country in Europe and is the sixth most populous member state of the European Union. More than half the population lives in rural areas and only 6% lives in urban areas. Poland has experienced impressive economic growth since 2005, allowing the income gap with the OECD average to narrow, and living standards to improve. The economy has been very successful in integrating into global trade, in particular thanks to its increasing role as an outsourcing destination for business services. Poland also has a strong industrial base. Motor vehicles and related parts and accessories are the largest export commodities. Crude oil is the largest import commodity.

Poland is a lowland country: only 3% of the territory is above 500 metres. The country includes a variety of landscapes, from Northern lowlands, to Southern uplands culminating in the rocky mountain ranges of Karpaty and Sudety. Due to geophysical factors, such as location at the border of two climatic zones or along birds' migration routes and historical circumstances the biological diversity preserved in Poland ranks among the highest in Europe. The country is poorly endowed with freshwater resources, but has significant energy reserves, including large quantities of hard coal and major lignite deposits. Domestic oil production is small but domestic natural gas meets about a third of demand. There are also major deposits of copper, zinc and lead ore, sulphur and salt.

Climate change

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Energy mix

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Since 2000, GHG emissions have been decoupled from GDP thanks to climate-friendly policies and measures implemented in all sectors (public energy production and supply, industry, transport, small combustion sources, agriculture and waste).

The main GHG emission source is fuel combustion from energy industries (e.g. power plants), transport and small combustion sources (like households). Large industrial combustion sources are regulated by the EU ETS system which incentivise the investment in low-emission technologies. Emissions from small combustion sources and transport are more challenging to regulate. Together with the economic growth, transport emissions have been constantly increasing in recent years as a result of growing fuel use and vehicles amount. They decreased in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic and associated transport restrictions.

Air quality

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Air emissions

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Emissions of all pollutants have decreased since 2000 due to policies and measures introduced both at EU and country levels. The significant drop in SOx emissions resulted, among others, from the increasing number of power plants equipped with desulphurization installations.

The largest source of NOx emissions is the combustion of fuels in road transport, where emissions have been growing in recent years offsetting emission decreases in other sectors. Transport emissions have grown as a result of increasing number of vehicles and fuel use in the growing economy activity.

Since 2010 the Inspection for Environmental Protection has been conducting PM_2.5 measurements in agglomerations and cities with population more than 100 thousands inhabitants to measure national average exposure to PM_2.5. The national average exposure to particulate matter PM_2.5 exceeds the new guideline value of 5 µg/m³ recommended by the World Health Organization.

Emissions from fuel combustion processes outside industry (mainly related to heating of individual buildings and meeting other living needs) is the major contributor to PM_2.5 concentration in Poland. The effective implementation of the Clean Air program initiated in 2018 should contribute to reduce air pollution emissions from the communal and housing sector.

Poland is a country with a high biodiversity, which is determined to a large extent by the features of the transitional climate with the influence of oceanic and continental air masses, favorable conditions of geographical location in the central part of the continent, without natural barriers in the east and west, diversified geological structure, varied topography and hydrographic system, soil variability. Poland's natural wealth is also characterized by uneven industrialization and urbanization of the country, preserved large areas traditional, extensive agriculture, and extensive and historically durable forests.

Protected areas

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Protected areas in Poland consists of 43 500 areas and objects divided into nine forms of nature protection with a different protection regime. Their cover exceed the 2020 Aichi target (under the Convention on Biological Diversity) to protect at least 17% of land area and 10% of coastal and marine areas.