Katarzyna Wawrzyniak

Global discussion on energy security remains deeply embedded in social, political, and economic discourse, especially in light of ongoing geopolitical instability and disruptions in supply chains. The aim of this study is to assess the degree of differentiation in the energy security of EU countries and to distinguish typological groups of the studied facilities based on the level of this phenomenon in 2023. This article uses a three-stage research procedure to assess the energy security of EU countries. In the first stage, statistical data were collected for 21 diagnostic features belonging to three groups: energy production and consumption, energy imports and exports, and economic and social factors. Next, using the TOPSIS method, three synthetic measures were constructed: separately for each group of features, taking into account features from the first and second groups, and taking into account features from all three groups. Based on these measures, typological groups of countries were identified using the three-median method. In the final stage, the impact of socio-economic characteristics on energy security was assessed. The results presented in this paper confirm the varied level of energy security in EU countries and indicate that it is linked not only to categories directly related to the energy economy but also to the level of socio-economic development of a given country. The top places in the ranking are occupied by countries such as Sweden, Finland, the Netherlands and Austria, while the last places in the ranking include Malta, Greece, Cyprus and Ireland.

The standards of environmental protection play a key role in determining the acceptable level of ecological safety. The aim of the study discussed in the article is to identify the varying degree to which voivodships in Poland adhere to the adopted environmental standards. The research was performed in 2022. The values of the environmental protection standards were determined on the basis of the analysis of the distributions of the indicators taken into account in the study. Data for the calculations were taken from the Local Data Bank of Statistics Poland. The classical correspondence analysis performed on the basis of data presented in a binary matrix of indicators and Ward’s method was used to assess the degree of the implementation of the standards by the Polish voivodships. The obtained results made it possible to indicate the weaknesses and strengths of the voivodships in the field of environmental protection. Lubelskie, Pomorskie and Wielkopolskie voivodships met the standards to the largest degree (50% of the common indicators adhering to the standards), while Opolskie and Śląskie performed worst, with no common indicators adhering to the standards.

This study aims to present the current status and forecasts related to the generation of energy from renewable sources, as well as the challenges and barriers resulting from the development of this energy in the European Union countries. The research procedure consists of three stages: bibliometric analysis of scientific publications conducted based on the Web of Science database, visualization of results using VOSViewer software (version 1.6.20), and in-depth analysis of the content of the publications. The study covered two periods. The first one covered the years 1990–2024, in which publications on sustainable development and renewable energy sources began to appear around the world. The second one included publications from 2002, because the first works on European Union countries were identified in that year. The final sample included 96 articles that identified key links between sustainable development and renewable energy. These topics accounted for 50% of all issues discussed in these articles. It turned out that one of the most important challenges of modern economies (21.9% of the articles examined) is finding a balance between sustainable economic growth and limiting environmental degradation. The literature review also shows that the renewable energy sector in the EU and its Member States is developing dynamically. This was confirmed by Eurostat data on both renewable energy production and consumption.

In the last decade, rapid technological development and a simultaneous increase in social awareness related to environmental protection have been determinants of the research and development of new techniques for generating energy from renewable sources. The international situation after 24 February 2022 in turn caused an increase in demand for energy that can be generated locally. This trend has not bypassed Poland either, where dynamic development of the market related to generating energy from renewable sources has been observed for many years. The aim of this article is to identify regularities in the degree of impact of the production and consumption of renewable energy on economic growth in Poland in 2005–2022. In this study, we used power econometric models. The results obtained by the authors show that energy consumption including renewable energy affects economic growth. In Poland, in the period under review, the increase in the consumption and production of energy from renewable sources, both on a national scale and on the scale of separate regions (city agglomerations, towns and suburbs, rural areas), contributed to the increase in measures characterizing economic development.

The share of renewable energy sources (RES) in the global energy system is systematically increasing, making them the most important element of the energy transformation. Their use enables rational management of limited resources, reduction of environmental pollution, and has a significant inhibitory effect on energy poverty by improving energy efficiency. The aim of this article is to assess the impact of the use of renewable energy on the level of energy poverty in the European Union countries in 2010, 2015, and 2022. A taxonomic measure of development based on the Weber median was used to examine the relationship between the results achieved by individual EU member states in terms of the impact of the use of renewable energy on the level of energy poverty. The research results clearly indicate the existence of disproportions between the countries of the “old” EU and the countries that joined it in 2004 and later. These disproportions concern both the use of energy obtained from renewable sources and energy poverty. In the countries of the “old” Union, a positive moderate relationship was identified between the use of renewable energy and energy poverty, which means that a higher share of the use of energy from renewable sources in these countries reduces energy poverty. In the countries of the “new” Union, however, this relationship was very weak (2010) or non-existent. Since the renewable energy sector is subject to government policy and regulations, the results presented in this paper should be of interest to decision-makers. A stable, long-term policy should provide an appropriate investment climate that provides support for renewable energy projects and reduces the level of energy poverty.

Wiadomości Statystyczne. The Polish Statistician vol.68, 2023, 5, Stabilność grupowania powiatów województwa zachodniopomorskiego pod względem sytuacji gospodarczej. Co zmieniła pandemia COVID-19?, DOI 10.59139/ws.2023.05.1, Barbara Batóg Katarzyna Wawrzyniak

The article presents the results of research on the transformation process in the Polish country-side between 2010 and 2020, taking into account those rural communes where the State-Owned Farms (PGR) were located. The study aimed to identify the spatial diversity of post-PGR communes on the grounds of socio-economic situation and to assess the rate of change in this situation in the surveyed communes over 11 years, as well as to answer the question how the socio-economic situation was influenced by the location of a given commune relative to province capitals. In the analyses, selected methods of descriptive statistics and multidimensional comparative analysis were applied. The results confirmed that in many post-PGR communes, also these days, we can observe financial problems, and that people experience significant difficulties with entering the labour market. The research also showed that in most cases communes located close to these cities were characterized by a better socio-economic situation than the communes located further away.