Time for transition – Temporal structures in energy governance in contemporary Poland

Abstract

The institutions of the European Union place a clear emphasis on the importance of energy transition. However, the speed and scope of actions aiming at achieving climate neutrality of economies varies in the different member states. Poland, with an economy based on coal and a particular emphasis on the demands of energy security, appears to be especially sluggish in this respect, despite external and internal pressure from diverse stakeholders expecting particular decisions. The subject literature to date has analysed the structural – economic, political and historical-cultural – difficulties of phasing out coal. This article gives further attention to the causes by analysing the temporality of energy policy, a rarely analysed subject in the literature. It examines various temporal structures in functional systems, questioning how politics, science, economics and social movements designate the future horizons, which concepts of time influence their observations of the environments and how they affect the relationships of expectations and decisions. The discordance of temporal structures generates sources of uncertainty and induces an autoimmunological reaction of the system.