Polish Government Promises Action On Smog, But Relief For "Europe's China" Unlikely
EDIT
Smog is not only Krakow’s concern though. It is actually easier to point out areas in Poland which do not face this problem (e.g. windy cities at the shore of Baltic Sea), rather than to enumerate the ones which do (basically the rest of the country).
To shed more light on the current situation, it is worth mentioning data from the last WHO report on air pollution, released in May 2016. Out of 50 cities with the worst air pollution in European Union, 33 were located in Poland. What is even worse, among the Top 10 most polluted cities seven were Polish, including the top two: Zywiec and Pszczyna – small towns in the south of Poland.
Quite surprisingly, Krakow did not even make it to the top ten; it was ranked 11th. The findings of the report were shocking. However, not until now has smog made it to the headlines and more importantly, to the public conscience.
It has become inevitable that the Law and Justice government would need to act. Prime minister Beata Szydlo has called for some rapid recommendations from her minister of development and finance, Mateusz Morawiecki. A list of ideas on how to improve air quality was presented to the governmental Economic Committee on 17 January. Some of them are promising. Morawiecki has offered to adopt this spring the long-awaited regulations of emission levels of stoves available on Polish market as well as a regulation of quality of coal being sold to housing sector. In both regards, Poland is now Europe’s landfill.
EDIT
http://www.euractiv.com/section/climate-environment/opinion/smog-plagued-poland-tries-to-escape-tag-as-europes-china/