The UN climate conference, Cop24, kicks off this Sunday in the Silesian coalfield in southern Poland. Report of our special envoys in smog, in the land of coal king ...
The beautiful winter days are the worst in Rybnik, wedged at the foot of the Tatra Mountains, about fifty kilometers from Katowice, where opens this Sunday morning the Cop24, United Nations climate conference. The anticyclonic pressures place cold air on the ground and pollutants too. A pungent fog stirs the streets, the nose, the view.
It is necessary to find the union local of the minors in this unhealthy opacity. A three-storey, Soviet-style bar along an endless boulevard serving four coal mines. We end up finding the logo ZZG, old Polish union, born post-war, well before Solidarnosc.
Chief of Section Henrik Mazewski admits pollution. But "coal is not for nothing". The designated enemy is "the car". The trade unionist, born in 1960, has evidence: "The window panes of my grandmother. When I was small and few cars were driving, she did not have to wash them every two weeks like today. "
"Coal, a way of life in Rybnik"
The ZZG and other coal unions are on edge. They know that "all the ecologists" who arrive in Poland, at the United Nations Climate Conference (Cop24, read full foot ), have a tooth against their mining culture. They will defend it tooth and nail, with the consent of the Conservative government Law and Justice. "Everything's been better for a few years ... " starts Henrik, who does not hide his political ideas. Coal in Rybnik? It's "a way of life. Yes, an art. "
On the sixth floor of her dilapidated hospital, pediatrician Katarzyna Musiol draws her Airly app, which measures the rate of concentration of fine particles in the air. "This morning's smog has reached 836%! The alert threshold is 90-120 % ! "
The pride of the coal basin is not amusing. She worked for eleven years as an oncologist in the pediatric ward of Katowice, the capital of Silesia. Of the 500 children with leukemia or brain tumors she followed, an unusually high proportion lived in Rybnik. "I wanted to know why. I put all my students on the spot and the Institute for Environmental Protection. "
She knows now. Rybnik holds the worst levels of fine particles in Europe. The city is a bowl. The pollution of coal mines, cars and coal stoves infiltrates the organs, attacks the bodies of the weakest, "children and old people, those who can not use this app, to know when put on their mask ! "
Protecting yourself is also a feat in this city in denial. No mask on sale, at the central pharmacy Pod Lwem, nor in Ziko, in the mall ... At the town hall? No more…
Around 3:30 pm, at nightfall, we go to the two-story house of Zygmund Grabowski with the smell and thick smoke coming out of the chimney. This 67-year-old miner has always bought his coal at Kolpania KWK Marcel where he made his career, like his father before him. For this winter, he has returned five tons of black rocks. They fill a room from the cellar to the ceiling.
Three-quarters of the fireplaces in the residential area spit out the same. The former miner does not see the problem. He changed his boiler two years ago, "the filters are there in front," he says, pointing to the drawer above the stove, "and it's guaranteed until 2025".
"50 kg of coal per day"
Change fuel? Zygmund does not imagine it. His retirement peaks at 2,300 zlotys, or € 550. That of his wife at 310 €. Coal is cheap for former miners, about 20 € per ton. "My little boiler heats the whole house, with 50 kg of coal a day ..."
"A vicious circle ," laments the pediatrician. We continue to produce coal, which continues to fuel the heating of homes, without seeking a solution ... "
On the death of Alicjia, "courageous little patient of 11 years", defeated by a brain tumor, Katarzyna Musiol, totally isolated whistleblower in Rybnik, decided to create a foundation ( maliwspaniali.o rg.pl ) to his name…