… thanks to a ban on heating with coal and wood. Will Czechia’s smoggiest city find inspiration in Poland? From Okraj.
“I used to cough often and my eyes would itch. Just like many others who spend their lives living in a country with such heavily polluted air, I thought it was normal,” says environmental activist Magdalena Kozlowska.
We meet in the office of the environmental organization Krakow Smog Alarm. The walls have images of dirty lungs on them and signs stacked in the corridor carry a simple message: “Krakow wants to breathe!”
Kozlowska remembers the moment when she came home and realized that the smell on her clothes was not just some kind of winter smell, as she used to think, but smog. After attending her first meeting of the Krakow Smog Alarm, she became a clean-air activist.
Kozlowska has been part of the organization since its foundation in 2012. Back then, it was a new civic movement for clean air, working to make city dwellers more aware of the poor air quality and to force politicians to adopt effective measures.
Back then, Krakow ranked high on the European Environmental Agency’s list of Europe’s most polluted cities. The city exceeded European air quality limits 150 days of each year, sometimes by as much as 800 percent.
It All Began on Facebook
It was often literally hard to breathe in the city. The most dangerous substances, such as benzo(a)pyrene, came from the burning of cheap, low-quality coal, wood, and heating oils in old and inefficient boilers, furnaces, and domestic fireplaces. These sources contributed most to the concentrations of particulate matter in the air.
Key to changing the situation was a drastic reduction in the emissions of pollutants from the communal and housing sectors. “The cause was obvious and there was expertise on what you could do about it. A total ban on solid fuels seemed to be the best solution. However, experts were warning us that this could not be done because of a lack of public support,” Kozlowska recalls.
But Krakow Smog Alarm decided to change that. “We thought that the city council’s attempts at eliminating emissions were insufficient and the means allocated to this effort inadequate, given the scale of the problem,” the group’s website states. “Thus, we decided to take matters into our own hands and launched an awareness campaign aimed at local citizens. We realized that only pressure coming from the citizens would force local and regional authorities to implement effective measures.”
Before the Krakow Smog Alarm became a registered organization, it was a group of friends who talked about pollution and discussed its negative impact on their lives and their children’s health. Gradually, more and more local people joined their activities and demands, and a local clean-air movement gradually formed.
“We created a Facebook page. Very soon, people started joining us, offering help and support. We organized rallies and marches, collected signatures for petitions, and received a lot of support from the public. People came to our rallies, hundreds of locals joined us in the streets and started demanding changes,” says activist Ewa Lutomska, now the organization’s project manager.
The group started using public events to highlight the critical state of the city’s air quality. In 2013, for example, thousands of city residents delivered a coffin marked “air” to Wojciech Kozak, then the vice-governor of Lesser Poland province, one of several events aimed at jolting political leaders into action.
The movement was supported by doctors, scientists, and journalists. “We taught journalists how to write about air quality, because back then, that was a new topic for them. Marketing experts advised us on campaigns, so that the campaigns would attract people’s attention. We also wanted the campaigns to be sufficiently visual, so that people would understand the real consequences of smog,” Kozlowska explains.
Eventually, the activists convinced both the general public and the politicians. “The most important factors were social pressure and scientific research, which showed that people were dying too soon each year, that they were being diagnosed with lung diseases because of the polluted air,” adds Krakow-based journalist Katarzyna Kojzar, an environmental reporter at OKO.press.
The first hint of the success of the clean air initiative came in October 2013 with a public consultation on a ban on solid fuels in the province, which can issue decrees of this type. Local residents were able to submit comments to the regional strategy for better air quality, then in draft stage. People submitted a record-breaking 2,500 comments, 90 percent of which supported a total ban on solid fuels.
“No previous consultation, not even the development strategy for Lesser Poland, had received that many comments and opinions. We cannot ignore your voices. Therefore, we will submit a regulation that will be in accordance with the public expectations,” said the regional governor, Marek Sowa.
The ban on the use of solid fuels in Krakow was approved by the Lesser Poland provincial council in November 2013, with 22 votes for, 11 against, and 5 abstaining.
“This happened after a year of intense information campaigns. It would never have occurred if it weren’t for the motivated people, engaged in the effort, who went to the streets,” Ewa Lutomska says about how the change was brought about.
That was also the moment when the informal group became official. “That’s when we decided to form an association that would monitor the steps implemented by the authorities, but also to go beyond the borders of Krakow and start fighting for clean air in all of Lesser Poland,” she says.
Today, Poland has a network of similar initiatives, led by the umbrella organization Polish Smog Alert. These smog alarm groups can be found in just about every city, big or small.
Complications on the Road to Improvement
The approved ban was supposed to enter into force in 2018. However, the highest administrative court invalidated it in 2015, arguing that the province had exceeded its competences by issuing the ban.
Less than a month after the court’s decision, however, the competences of regional authorities changed. Polish President Andrzej Duda signed an amendment to the law on environmental protection, giving local councils the right to ban furnaces that burn coal as well as some other types of fuel.
In early 2016, Lesser Poland councilors voted again for an anti-smog resolution, with 19 votes for and 15 abstaining. But even on the second attempt, the ban was not implemented smoothly.
The regional administrative court received four complaints against the new regulation, from both citizens and heating industry representatives. But it eventually rejected all of them.
The ban has thus been in effect since September 2019. Since then, people haven’t been able to heat their households with solid fuels. This came about through the cooperation of activists, the city, and the province. Apart from introducing the ban itself, Krakow also inaugurated related social programs and opened information centers, so that people could learn about other ways of heating their homes.
Since then, any opposition to the ban has all but disappeared from the city, journalist Kojzar says. “A total ban has been in place since 2019, meaning we no longer have any heating systems dependent on solid fuels,” she says, adding that there are no more reasons to complain.
“You will always have some critics, but for the most part, the citizens of Krakow have understood the problems of polluted air and of continued exposure to high concentrations of toxic substances, especially during wintertime, and they have accepted the changes that were introduced,” adds city spokesperson Katarzyna Misiewicz.
A few months before the ban came into effect, the city commissioned a survey among its inhabitants. Over 80 percent of respondents welcomed the regulation. According to Kojzar, more problematic is now the fact that the ban was not introduced in the entire Lesser Poland region, and continues to be controversial in the rest of the province.
A City Where You Can Breathe Again
Four years have passed since the Krakow ban was introduced, and you can literally feel the results in the air. At one monitoring station, the number of smog days declined from 116 in 2012 to 16 in 2023. As a consequence of the measures adopted, the average annual concentrations of PM10 (dense particulate matter) were cut in half by 2020. A significant decrease was also reported in the case of fine particulate matter, or PM2.5.
Research undertaken by Ewa Czarnobilska, director of the center for clinical and environmental allergology at Krakow University Hospital, has also showed that the changes in air quality are having a positive impact on the health of Krakow’s children and young people. The incidence of asthma and allergic rhinitis has declined since the old boilers and furnaces were replaced.
But in her opinion, the change in legislation is not the only reason. “We know full well that the level of awareness among Krakow’s inhabitants also contributed to the improvement. Thanks to the activities of the NGOs and of the local administration to promote clean air, people understand the consequences of smog better. We now have apps that report the concentration of particulate matter in the air, so people do not go out for walks with their kids when the norms are exceeded,” Czarnobilska explains.
Cooperation Is Crucial
Activists and their campaigns like “Krakow without smog” and “We want to breathe” played a key role in raising public awareness. According to Kozlowska, Krakow Smog Alarm encountered some resistance at first, especially from local politicians.
She says some of them suspected members of the movement of leading a political campaign and threatening their political interests. There were also attempts to push back against the clean-air campaign, purportedly because it could jeopardize tourism in the city.
“Paradoxically, the city was trying to get tourists to visit, but it was not interested in the health of the locals. The politicians did not want to damage the city’s positive image, but they eventually realized it would be better to face the problems, implement strict measures, and to present the situation as a success story and a source of inspiration for others,” Kozlowska says.
According to Lutomska, criticism of Krakow Smog Alarm and concerns about its potential political power happened mostly in the form of private discussions, and was often gossip-based. “The truth is, we did get offers from political parties to join them and take part in municipal elections. Of course, we rejected that, because our motivation was completely different,” she explains.
“There were also some smaller local protests, mostly run by people connected to the timber industry and fireplace salesmen, who tried to protect their business from a total ban on wood heating,” Kozlowska says. “When it came to coal, most people were aware of its negative effects, but wood was thought of as a natural and pleasant source of heat,” she adds.
Krakow’s mayor, Jacek Majchrowski, who has been in office since 2002, agrees it was first difficult to explain the issue and push it through, but this changed with increased ecological awareness among both politicians and citizens. This was, among other things, made possible by the new civic movement. “They brought attention to the issue of smog, focused on practical steps to improve air quality, and supported the city’s introduction of the ban on the use of solid fuels,” he says, adding that they were partners rather than a political threat.
City Funding Eased the Switch
“As a civic movement, we have been aware from the beginning that the poorest people need financial support to exchange their furnaces, so that was what we proposed,” says Kozlowska, noting that local politicians supported this as well.
Before the ban entered into force, the city came up with a financial scheme that covered 100 percent of the cost of getting a gas furnace, connecting to central heating, or transitioning to renewable resources. In 2017, this support shrank to 80 percent, and for the last two years before the ban entered into force it was 60 percent. The gradual decrease in the support did not apply to socially deprived households and individuals. To help them, the city introduced a social aid program.
Between 2012 and 2019, some 30,000 solid fuel heating units were removed and almost 2,000 renewable energy sources installed. All of this cost Krakow over 300 million zloty (some 70 million euros). Apart from its own budget, the city also used money from external sources, including grants and loans with favorable conditions.
The city also reimburses the cost difference between heating using cheaper but dirty coal, and cleaner but more expensive gas, and has a subsidy program for insulating buildings to reduce heating costs. City hall’s decision to launch these programs was an important argument in winning public support, on the regional level as well.
Smoggy Days Are Not a Thing of the Past
According to the Polish Meteorological Office, fully implementation of the program to end burning of solid fuel in Krakow’s communal heating plants was the main factor in reducing the concentrations of solid contaminants in the air. But that is not the only factor.
“We need to remember that weather conditions also play a very important role when it comes to emissions of contaminants. The warming of the climate, which has been observed for a number of years now, and the subsequent reduction in the frequency of unfavorable meteorological conditions, which are conducive to the accumulation of contaminants, has also improved air quality in Krakow,” the office said.
Why, then, does Krakow still have very polluted days even though virtually all coal and wood burning has been eliminated?
The problem is the geographic location of the city in the Vistula River valley. That’s why days with sharp temperature swings see an accumulation of contaminants from neighboring municipalities, which have not banned solid fuels. “In Krakow’s neighboring towns, there are still more than 10,000 solid fuel furnaces that are yet to be put out of service,” the city spokesperson says.
At the same time, city hall itself also admits that the solid-fuel ban is insufficient on its own. Krakow still ranks high on the world’s smog map. The next step in the fight for clean air will be to cut vehicle emissions with a so-called clean transport zone.
“It’s good that a clean transport zone will be introduced in Krakow. I’m also relying on wide-ranging checks of domestic heating systems in the towns around Krakow having an effect, and on authorities providing significant financial assistance to citizens who want to invest in ecological heat sources. We have to understand that a lot of the pollution floating above the city comes from the neighboring regions,” Dr. Czarnobilska says.
Ostrava Bets on Retiring the Oldest Boilers
Surveys show that the people of the Czech Republic’s third-largest city of Ostrava perceive polluted air as a serious problem. More than a fifth of respondents to a poll in 2019–2020 said they had already replaced their furnaces or were considering doing so.
Homes heated by solid fuels are the main contributors to smog in the city, according to the most recent detailed meteorological measurements. Ostrava sits in the same inversion-prone coal and steel belt as the neighboring Lower Silesia region of Poland. It has the dirtiest air in the Czech Republic, despite mild winters and the gradual decline of industry. For example, in 2022, 87 percent of the population in Ostrava and two nearby agglomerations were exposed to excessively high concentrations of cancer-causing benzo(a)pyrene.
When a 2010 study by the Czech Academy of Sciences found benzo(a)pyrene concentrations of about 15 nanograms per cubic meter (the current limit is 1 nanogram) persisting for several weeks at a time, the city threatened a lawsuit and demanded an apology.
In Krakow, civil society and politicians were able to agree on a solution to the problem that was making it difficult for them to breathe. In Ostrava, there is no threat of such a radical step as banning the burning of solid fuels, although a ban on some older solid-fuel boilers will come into effect across the Czech Republic in September. [More stringent restrictions on solid-fuel heating are likely in the near future – Transitions note.]
Ales Bohac, an Ostrava city councilor whose purview includes the environment, says the city’s air quality has improved thanks to state-subsidized replacement of older furnaces.
A Krakow-style complete ban on solid fuels would make less sense for Ostrava, which has and had different conditions, according to Jan Kozina from the environmental organization Ciste Nebe (Clear Skies).
“Coal dust was commonly burned in Poland, which was already prohibited in our country at that time. They were even worse off,” he says.
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Jan Zabka and two colleagues founded Okraj earlier this year as an outlet for local news and analysis from the Ostrava region. This article originally appeared on Okraj and was produced in partnership with Transitions. It was co-written by Simona Janikova and edited by Jakub Sidlo. Translated by Matus Nemeth.
