Our successes

The first Smog Alert was established in Krakow, in 2012. The actions taken by Kraków Smog Alert contributed to raising public awareness of air quality issues and their importance.
Consequently, in 2016 Kraków became the first  city in Poland to introduce a ban on solid fuel heating in domestic boilers. The ban came into force in 2019. Elimination of coal and wood heating translated into unprecedented air quality improvement – the number of days with polluted air fell from around 120 in 2013 to less than 20 in 2023.

Kraków Smog Alert was soon supplemented by a network of Local Smog Alerts. Thanks to our joint efforts:

Raised public awareness has translated into changes in Polish law and in financial programmes.

• In January 2016 Kraków became the first city in Poland to introduce a ban on solid fuel heating in low power boilers (coming into force in 2019).
• To date bans on using coal for household heating have been voted in around 20 cities and towns (including the capital city of Warsaw, which banned coal burning in households in 2023).
• To date anti-smog resolutions have been passed by the authorities of 14 out of Poland’s 16 regions. This means that nearly 90% of the country is covered by anti-smog provisions to be enforced within the coming several years. These laws set time limits by which all residents must replace their old solid fuel based boilers and stoves with clean heating technologies. 1,5 million households have already given up coal heating within last few years.

• In 2017 the national government introduced emission standards for solid fuel boilers, stopping the sales of the most polluting coal boilers.
• In 2018 the national government introduced quality standards for coal, limiting the sales of coal waste and poor quality coal.
• In 2018, after a long PSA campaign, the government launched a number of financial measures to support air quality improvement, including a 25-billion-EUR subsidy and soft-loan programme supporting boiler replacement and thermal renovation of single family houses. The programme is accompanied by tax relief for these investments. Already nearly 1,000,000 households have applied to the programme.
• In 2021 national legislation was amended to give Polish cities the right to establish low emission zones, aimed at eliminating the most polluting vehicles from city traffic. The first LEZ was adopted in 2022 in Krakow – this is the first such zone in post-communist Europe. The second one was implemented in Warsaw in 2024.
• Thanks to the reforms and programmes initiated by PSA air quality in Poland is slowly improving. The number of zones with excessive particulate matter concentration fell from 38 (out of 46) in 2012 to 14 in 2022. Better air quality translates into public health – the number of premature deaths has decreased by 20%, with 10,000 deaths annually.