Know better. Do better.

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.

"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, home to Vindhyachal - India's largest power plant and one of the top 10 polluting plants in the world.

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.

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.

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 showed, equivalent to about 8.6% of Poland's entire CO2 emissions.

Our Europe correspondent Jo Gill went to Bełchatów 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