The European Union aspires to pursue an ambitious climate policy. The energy sector is a key tool to ensure success in this area. At the same time, excessively ambitious targets can be a serious problem for individual member states. The aim of the article is to analyze the possibilities available to the Polish energy sector in the context of the assumed EU climate neutrality goals by 2050.

The analyzed research problem concerns, in particular, two areas of strategic importance for Poland: the coal sector and the renewable energy sources sector. The role of the former should be significantly reduced in the coming decades, while the position of the latter should be substantially strengthened. The juxtaposition of these challenges with the Polish economic, social and techno- logical realities is the main subject of analysis in this text. The method of system analysis with elements of a decision-making approach will be used. This will allow for an effective analysis and review at the research level of the most important problems and challenges faced by Poland in light of the necessary adjustments to be made in order to achieve the priorities assumed by the European Union.

The hypothesis of the article is that Poland is able to effectively meet European climate targets, although the implementation of this challenge requires decisive action on the part of the government, as well as an adequate response from investors and society. To this end, appropriate actions must be undertaken at both a strategic and operational level.

This paper summarizes the arguments and counterarguments within the scientific discussion

on developing the free-carbon economy in Ukraine. The main purpose of the paper is elaborating

the energy efficiency profile of Ukraine to assure the development of the free-carbon economy. To

achieve this purpose, the authors carried out an investigation in the following logical sequence.

Firstly, the bibliometric analysis of 4674 of the most cited articles indexed by the Scopus database

was conducted. The obtained findings indicated that the green economy transformation depended

on the main factors such as economic performance, corruption, macroeconomic stability, social

welfare, shadow economy etc. As a result, the forecast of the final energy consumption to 2030

was performed. The methodological tool of this research is based on the Autoregressive Integrated

Moving Average (ARIMA) model. This study involved data of the Visegrad countries (Poland, the

Czech Republic, the Slovak Republic and Hungary) and Ukraine from 2000 to 2018. The base of

data is Eurostat, the EU statistical service. Based on the obtained results of analyzing the green

economic transformation in the Visegrad countries and Ukraine, the authors intimated the existence

of the significant energy-efficient gap in Ukraine compared to the analyzed countries. In reliance on

the experience of the Visegrad countries and the forecast results, the authors provided the main recommendations

for providing the green transforming in Ukraine. The authors highlighted that the obtained

results of this paper were considered to be the base for future investigations considering the influence

of endogenous and exogenous factors on developing the free-carbon economy in Ukraine.