When Ikea of Sweden AB opened its first Polish store in 1991, the Billy bookcases and Klippan sofas symbolized a new, modern Western lifestyle for a country that had just ditched communism. A quarter of a century later, the maker of flat-packed furniture heralds another alternative future. This time, it is less reliant on coal for energy and it is colliding with the country's past. Ikea and French food company Danone are among the international companies planning to or already generating their own "green" electricity sources just as the new Polish government champions traditional coal production. Prime Minister Beata Szydlo astonished European Union lawmakers in January by lobbying for more aid for the continent's biggest coal industry while facing a rebuke for trying to renege on emissions targets.
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