Poland’s Carbon Capture Drive Gains Transport Traction

Legal changes and new projects are putting CO₂ transport at the heart of Poland’s emerging CCS strategy

29 Jan 2026

Poland is quietly laying the groundwork for large-scale carbon capture and storage, and the next frontier is clear: getting the captured carbon where it needs to go. CO₂ transport, once a technical afterthought, is fast becoming central to the country’s decarbonization ambitions.

Recent legal reforms have started to unlock that potential. Amendments to the Geological and Mining Law and the Energy Law in 2023 removed limits that had long confined CCS to small-scale pilots. With the new rules, Poland can now move from experiments to commercial deployment, signaling that carbon capture is no longer an academic exercise but an industrial tool.

These updates also carry weight for transport. While CO₂ pipelines were already defined under the Energy Law, the earlier framework was narrow and uncertain, leaving developers in limbo. The latest changes do not yet establish a full transport regime, but they do align regulations more coherently and smooth out friction across the CCS chain.

Strategic planning is catching up, too. The draft National Energy and Climate Plan for 2025 explicitly names CCS and CCUS as part of the country’s emissions reduction toolkit. It also flags the importance of developing transport infrastructure, even if detailed network maps are still in the works.

That policy shift mirrors a wider European reality. Capturing carbon means little unless it can be moved safely and affordably to storage sites. Across the continent, shared CO₂ networks are emerging as the linchpin of scalable CCS. In Poland, that same logic is starting to guide both public and private investment.

Some projects are already testing the waters. The Go4ECOPlanet initiative, linked to Holcim’s Kujawy cement plant, demonstrates the technical feasibility of capture while underscoring the urgent need for transport and storage pathways. Other industrial consortia are forming quietly, sketching early outlines of what a national network might look like.

For investors and developers, the message is cautiously optimistic. Regulation is catching up, planning frameworks are clearer, and CO₂ transport has entered the policy spotlight. Poland’s CCS landscape is still in motion, but its trajectory is firming up toward a future where captured carbon does not just stay on the drawing board.