Beyond targets: Social acceptance and implementation challenges in Poland’s updated National Energy and Climate Plan

The report assesses Poland’s updated National Energy and Climate Plan by combining an analysis of energy and climate security risks with new evidence on public preferences regarding the transition. We relate four risk dimensions (geopolitical, affordability, reliability, and sustainability) to the NECP’s targets and measures. The analysis is complemented by a survey and a discrete choice experiment that identifies preferences over trade-offs involving climate impacts, fossil-fuel imports, and the distribution of transition costs and benefits. The results indicate that the key issue is not only raising target ambition, but also the trajectory, feasibility, and durability of implementation. Affordability is the most sensitive area: public acceptance of policy depends on cost resilience and perceived fairness. The findings also point to the need for a broader understanding of security that captures households’ exposure to price-volatility risk and helps explain public attitudes toward energy and climate policy.