WARSAW: European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) invested record 1.3 billion euros ($1.42 billion) in Poland in 2023 as it focuses more on green transition in the country, the multilateral lender said on Thursday.

Helping cutting carbon dioxide emissions is one of EBRD’s main targets in Poland, whose previous government has challenged European Union’s climate change policies and sought to slow down fossil fuels’ phase-out, citing its social and economic costs.

The share of coal in electricity generation in Poland has fallen by almost 10 percentage points last year to around 68%.

The new government plans to kick-start the country’s lagging transition from coal to achieve up to 70% of energy production from renewable sources by 2030.

“About 75% of the total investment was in what we consider green finance,” EBRD Regional Head for Poland and the Baltic states, Elisabetta Falcetti, told journalists, referring to the lender’s investments in Poland in 2023. “(It) is way above the bank’s objective, which is … more than 50% of its total investment into green economy transition projects,” she added.

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Falcetti said that the 2023 result - which beat the previous record of 990 million euros achieved in 2022 - might be difficult to repeat in 2024 as the previous year was exceptional thanks to opening of offshore projects and many companies returning to capital markets after a slow 2022.

She also said that the bank was working on a new five-year strategy for Poland, with green investments expected to remain the leading priority given huge investments needed to de-carbonize the Polish economy.