Climate Talk

Winter smog season in Poland is starting again. Why is it so hard to fix?

Every October, when people in my town start heating, the air changes. You can smell it in the evening. Many houses still burn coal or wood in old stoves, and some people burn rubbish too.

I understand both sides. There are subsidies for replacing old stoves, and many people did. But for some older or poorer families the paperwork is complicated, and coal is what they know and can afford. Telling a 75-year-old widow she must change her heating is not simple.

Kraków banned burning coal and wood in the city some years ago and the air got better, but the villages around it still have the problem. I'd like to hear from other countries that solved this. What worked for the people who were hardest to reach?