Michał Kurtyka, Minister of Climate

He graduated from the prestigious École Polytechnique in Paris and received a scholarship in quantum optics from the National Institute of Standards and Technologies in Washington (DC), where he worked under the lead of William D. Phillips, Nobel Prize Laureate in Physics. During his studies, he also specialised in economics, with particular emphasis on market organisation under the lead of Professor Jean Tirole, Nobel Prize Laureate in Economics in 2014. He also studied international economics at the University of Louvain La Neuve and was awarded a Master's degree at the Warsaw School of Economics. He defended his doctoral dissertation at the University of Warsaw. In the past, he worked as a professor, teaching change management, economics, market organisation and industrial strategy at the University of Warsaw, Collegium Civitas, as well as Oxford Programme On Modern Poland. He is a co-author of the concept of effective change management in the company, described in the book Zarządzanie zmianą. Od strategii do działania, he also wrote Od restrukturyzacji do modernizacji. Opóźniona transformacja polskiego sektora elektroenergetycznego w latach 1990-2009.

He started his professional career in the Office of the Committee of European Integration, in the team of Minister Jan Kułakowski, responsible for conducting accession negotiations with the European Union, where he led an analytical team and was directly responsible for the area of energy and transport. Later on, he carried out the modernisation processes in numerous Polish companies, where he supported adaptation to the challenges of the European and global market. He promoted European cooperation in the field of industrial changes and adaptation of European industry to the challenges of globalisation within the framework of the European University of Labour and the Dublin Foundation. 

He created the governmental programme for the development of electro-mobility in Poland, described for the first time as a concept in a book written in 2013-2015, together with Prof. Leszek Jesień, New Electricity and New Cars. He also serves as Chairman of the Steering Committee of the Electro-mobility Programme.

Since 1 January 2016, he has been working as the Secretary of State at the Ministry of Energy, where he has been directly responsible for technological development and innovation in the energy sector, implementation of climate and energy policy in the fuel and gas sector, international relations with countries and international organisations. His duties also included supervising the participation of the state in the largest Polish energy companies in the oil and gas sector, such as Orlen, Lotos and PGNiG. He was the initiator of the “Electro-mobility Development Plan” and then piloted the creation of a law on electro-mobility and alternative fuels, thanks to which these forms of transport will be able to develop dynamically.

On the 27 April 2018, he was appointed as the Plenipotentiary for the Presidency of the COP 24 Summit in Poland. On 2 December 2018, he became the President of the COP 24.

Since July 2018, he has been the Secretary of State in the Ministry of Environment.

Michał Woś, Minister – Member of the Council of Ministers

He completed law studies at the Faculty of Law and Administration of the Jagiellonian University and managerial studies at the Warsaw School of Economics. In 2014, he became a councillor of the Racibórz City Council. He was appointed Vice-Chairman of the Committee for Economic Development, Budget and Finance.

From November 2015, he was an advisor to the Minister of Justice Zbigniew Ziobro, who in 2016 appointed him Head of the Political Cabinet. He was a member of the National Road Safety Council. On 5 June 2017, he was appointed Undersecretary of State in the Ministry of Justice, where he took over, among others, supervision over family and juvenile cases, correctional facilities and digitalisation of the justice system. He became the National Coordinator for IT system implementations. On 8 September 2017, Prime Minister Beata Szydło appointed him to the Joint Commission of the Government and Local Government.

At the Ministry of Justice, he supervised works on the amendment to the Act on the National Court Register introducing fully digitalised registration proceedings and the System for Random Allocation of Cases. The introduction of this system was one of the main arguments in defence of the judiciary reform in Poland’s negotiations with the European Commission, presented in the White Paper on the reform of the Polish Judiciary.

He has implemented the Act on Counteracting Sexual Crime Threats and is the author of the ICT system of the Register of Sexual Offenders in Poland.

In October 2018, he was elected a member of the Silesian Sejmik. On 21 November 2018, he was appointed to the voivodeship board.

He is the initiator of the Law Leaders Laboratory of the Justice Institute. He received a scholarship of the Prime Minister.

In 2018, he was ranked 12th in the list of 50 most influential lawyers in the Dziennik Gazeta Prawna ranking.

In June 2019, he became Minister for Humanitarian Aid.

Member of the Sejm of the Republic of Poland in its 9th term.