Poles Towards Energy Transformation and Energy Sources – Sociological Perspective

Abstract

The article presents the results of research on the issues of Poland’s energy transformation from a sociological perspective. The exploratory analysis covered the attitude of the Polish society to the energy transformation, i.e. a change in the methods of generating energy in Poland, which results from the climate policy adopted by the Polish government.1 The aim of the article is to present social awareness – the social expectations and perceptions of Poles regarding the energy transformation understood in this way – to determine whether the opinions and views of the Polish society are in line with the planned and implemented energy transformation processes. The article provides an answer to the question about the Polish society’s attitudes towards the energy transformation and energy sources – to what extent the attitudes towards the proposed solutions to the problems are positive, and to what extent negative. For this purpose, the method of analysing the existing statistical data was used The basis of the secondary data analysis are the results of public opinion polls, carried out by the Public Opinion Research Centre (CBOS) in the period from 19872 to 2021. The sociological perspective adopted here assumes that the energy transformation is not only an economic but also a social process. For this reason, public support, in particular the positive attitude of respondents to new energy sources, is considered an important element of its success.