Fight the power: why climate activists are suing Europe’s biggest coal plant

Future of Poland's BeAchatow power station under scrutiny as grassroots groups and NGOs take radical action

It is Europe's biggest coal plant, with annual CO₂ emissions roughly equivalent to those of the whole of New Zealand - but the future of the BeAchatow power station in central Poland has been called into question after a global environmental charity announced a legal challenge designed to eliminate the facility's carbon footprint by 2035.

ClientEarth, an international NGO that seeks to protect the environment through legal action, announced on Thursday that it was taking PGE GiEK, a subsidiary of Polish state-owned power giant Polska Grupa Energetyczna, to court over emissions at the BeAchatow plant, which is notorious for its burning of highly polluting lignite, or brown coal.

Related: Can Poland wean itself off coal?