Polish coal miners protest EU directive aiming to scale back methane emissions

Polish coal miners angered by a European Union directive aiming to scale back methane emissions protested noisily Friday earlier than the EU workplace in Warsaw saying it’ll deprive them of their jobs.

Some 300 miners chanted “Thieves” and used smoke flares and sirens to attract consideration to their protest within the downtown space of Poland’s capital. Traffic was quickly closed within the space.

Protesting miners from the Solidarity 80 union mentioned latest local weather suggestions for the 27-member EU that decision for a major discount of methane, beginning in 2027, would power a lot of the nation’s mines to shut, with the lack of tens of hundreds of jobs.

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Some 300 Polish coal miners angered by the European Union directive decreasing methane emissions protest noisily earlier than the EU workplace saying it’ll deprive them of their jobs, in Warsaw, Poland, on March 24, 2023. (AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski)

The majority of Poland’s mines have a excessive presence of methane fuel that will get launched within the coal extraction course of. That additionally results in critical mining accidents as methane turns into explosive when combined in low proportions with oxygen.

Located within the southern Silesia area, the coal mines are amongst Poland’s main employers, providing some 77,000 jobs within the nation of 38 million.