Impact of the Energy Sector on the Quality of the Environment in the Opinion of Energy Consumers from Southeastern Poland

Krzysztof Kud, Marian Woźniak and Aleksandra Badora
Additional contact information
Krzysztof Kud: Department of Enterprise, Management and Eco-Innovation, The Faculty of Management, Rzeszów University of Technology, 12 Powstańców Warszawy Street, 35-959 Rzeszów, Poland
Marian Woźniak: Department of Economics, The Faculty of Management, Rzeszów University of Technology, 12 Powstańców Warszawy Street, 35-959 Rzeszów, Poland
Aleksandra Badora: Department of Agricultural and Environmental Chemistry, University of Life Sciences in Lublin, 15 Akademicka Street, 20-950 Lublin, Poland

Energies, 2021, vol. 14, issue 17, 1-24

Abstract: Limiting CO 2 emissions has been adopted as a contemporary challenge and introduced into numerous global and regional policies. The measures taken to reduce greenhouse gas emissions largely relate to the decarbonization of the economy. Changes in the Polish energy sector are a huge challenge because the energy mix is dominated by the energy derived from coal combustion. Decarbonizing the energy sector will require significant financial resources. Therefore, several questions arise: What is the social attitude to the planned changes? How do residents treat the issue of greenhouse gases? Do they perceive the relationship between energy production and the quality of the natural environment? What are their expectations regarding the transformation of the energy sector? The aim of this study was to identify the opinion of the inhabitants of southeastern Poland on changes in the energy sector and its impact on the quality of the natural environment. The study was conducted at the turn of 2020 and 2021. The survey was partial and carried out using the CAWI (Computer Assisted Web Interview) method; 1539 questionnaire forms were filled in and the sample was randomly selected. The study confirms the following research hypotheses: 1. There is social support for the view that climate change is currently one of the greatest threats to modern civilization. 2. There is a social belief that the quality of the natural environment in southeastern Poland is good compared to other regions of Poland and Europe. 3. Increasing the share of energy based on renewable energy sources is socially expected. 4. There is a social expectation of nuclear energy. It can therefore be concluded that the surveyed community accepts the direction of changes in the energy sector.

Keywords: energy sector; environmental quality; renewable energy sources (RES); nuclear energy; southeastern Poland (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/14/17/5551/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/14/17/5551/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jeners:v:14:y:2021:i:17:p:5551-:d:629523

Access Statistics for this article

Energies is currently edited by Ms. Agatha Cao

More articles in Energies from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().