Smog casts light on Poland's unhealthy addiction to coal

The soupy gray smog shrouding Polish cities this winter is one of the most visible symptoms of the European Union member's addiction to coal, a deadly habit forcing many to stay indoors or don masks before venturing out.

Professor Anna Doboszynska, a specialist with more than two decades of experience treating lung disease, minces no words about the health risks it poses.

"During periods of smog, more people with respiratory and circulatory illnesses actually die," she said after examining an asthma patient wheezing heavily amid a spike in pollution in Warsaw.

"Children, pregnant women and the elderly are most at risk from smog, which damages the respiratory tract much in the same way smoking does.

"A child playing outside in the smog is smoking cigarettes, it's the same thing," she said.

One Warsaw hospital reported a 50 percent spike in patients over several days of intense smog during a windless cold snap last month.

As anti-smog masks sold out across Poland this week, Warsaw issued them to police officers on duty across the capital.

A study published last year by the European Environmental Agency blamed air pollution - caused in large part by the burning of coal - for an estimated 50,000 premature deaths per year in the country of 38 million people.

Seventy percent of Polish households burn low-quality coal or rubbish in old stoves for heat and antiquated coal-fired power plants generate nearly all of Poland's electricity, giving it some of the dirtiest air in the 28-member EU.

The AirVisuals website regularly lists Warsaw, Katowice or Krakow among the world's top 10 most polluted cities alongside Beijing or New Delhi.

Karolina, a Warsaw mother of three who did not wish to reveal her surname, says checking mobile phone apps for smog levels and wearing masks have become part of her family's daily routine.

"What scares me the most is the total lack of information and government inaction.

"There are days on end when the smog is so bad that school and kindergarten should be closed, but nothing is being done."

Authorities in Poland only alert the public when air pollution exceeds the EU-wide norm by 600 percent, according to Piotr Siergiej, an activist with anti-smog NGO "Alarm Smogowy".

The EU limit for exposure to fine air pollutants known as PM10 particles is 50 micrograms per cubic meter per day.

According to the IEA, coal accounted for 81 percent of Poland's electricity generation in 2015 and the heavily indebted coal-mining sector - one of Europe's largest - provided more than 100,000 politically sensitive jobs.

The right-wing government of Beata Szydlo, the daughter of a coal miner, has long insisted that plentiful domestic coal is key to Poland's energy security.

Her administration has also set tough regulations on the installation of wind turbines, in effect blocking competition from the renewables sector.

The IEA concluded that "the future of renewable energy in Poland looks uncertain", dimming hope for cleaner air anytime soon.