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By Jack Graham [[link removed]] | Deputy Editor, Funded Projects

Super polluters

This week, Context releases a new series on super polluters, the world's dirtiest power plants.

From India to Poland, our reporting shows how the world's top polluters - nearly all coal-fired - are having a disproportionate impact on the climate crisis [[link removed]].

"There is a small set of very egregious emitters that are responsible for the lion's share of carbon pollution emitted by the sector," Don Grant from the University of Colorado Boulder told my colleague Beatrice Tridimas.

But these super polluters are also meeting surging energy demand and supporting local jobs.

This makes them very difficult to shut, presenting a major challenge in the world's transition to clean energy.

Analysis of coal power often focuses on national-level emissions or specific companies, which can miss the local contexts of the world's largest polluters and the development priorities they support.

Our climate correspondent Bhasker Tripathi visited Singrauli in India [[link removed]], home to Vindhyachal - India's largest power plant and one of the top 10 polluting plants in the world.

Smoke coming out of chimneys of NTPC Vindhyachal coal power plant, the largest in India. Singrauli, India, on August 28, 2024. Thomson Reuters Foundation/Tanmoy Bhaduri

Social worker Manonit Ravi says it has been "living hell" enduring the pollution in his village near the plant, where residents regularly battle the effects of toxic ash from nearby coal-fired power plants.

But energy demand is still surging in India, which relies on coal for 70% of its electricity and has no plans to stop using it until at least 2040 [[link removed]].

The plant has trialled carbon capture to reduce its emissions, but experts warned these investments could end up taking resources away from new renewable energy.

Brown coal piled high at Bełchatów power complex where the mines are due to shutdown in 2026 and 2038 in Bełchatów, Poland, September 9, 2024. Thomson Reuters/Joanna Gill

A just transition

Meanwhile in Poland, the wheels are in motion to shut Europe's largest power plant called Bełchatów, which is planned by 2036.

It emitted about 27 million metric tons of carbon dioxide in 2022, satellite data from Climate Trace [[link removed]] showed, equivalent to about 8.6% of Poland's entire CO2 emissions [[link removed]].

Our Europe correspondent Jo Gill went to Bełchatów [[link removed]] to speak with workers, councillors and other locals who were concerned about the city's future beyond coal.

Cutting emissions is a condition for Poland receiving 3.85 billion euros ($4.16 billion) from the European Union, the largest slice of the bloc's 17.5-billion-euro Just Transition Fund.

Many of the plant's 7,000 direct employees have a right to severance packages, but others like contract workers and those in the service industry will not be so lucky if there are no other jobs to go to.

In the meantime, people living in the shadow of the world's super polluters are often being left in the dark.

"This whole transformation is a bit like yeti," said Krzystof, a coal miner at Bełchatów.

"We've heard about it, but no one's seen it."

See you next week,

Jack

This week's top picks Super polluting coal plants fuel economies and the climate crisis [[link removed]]

Moving on from the world's dirtiest power plants presents a huge climate opportunity but social risk

The energy capital powering India and poisoning its residents [[link removed]]

India's super-polluter Vindhyachal plant experiments with carbon capture, but trial fails to appease local coal concerns

Workers at Europe's dirtiest power plant wary of life after coal [[link removed]]

Poland's Bełchatów is one of the world's most polluting coal plants, but can its community find a green future?

Read all of our coverage here [[link removed]] Discover more Nature [[link removed]] Climate Risks [[link removed]] Net Zero [[link removed]] Just Transition [[link removed]] Climate Justice [[link removed]] Green Cities [[link removed]] Thank you for reading!

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