No clean air for Krakow

The first attempt in Poland to introduce a “Low Emissions Zone” in which older, more polluting cars would have been banned has been rejected by a court, reports Notes from Poland.

Plans to introduce the zone were approved in 2022 by the council of Krakow, Poland’s second-largest city and which has some of the country’s worst air pollution. However, the decision was challenged by Łukasz Kmita, governor of the Małopolska province in which Krakow is located. Kmita argued that the ban on older cars represented, “far-reaching interference in constitutional rights and freedoms”.

The Provincial Administrative Court in Krakow agreed with Kmita’s arguments that the geographical scope of the zone had not been properly defined and that the regulation approved by the council does not, as it should, specify how traffic would be organised within the zone.

After a new government took power last month, it appointed a new governor of Krzysztof Klęczar. However, he told TVN that he also “has personal doubts” about the idea of a clean transport zone in Krakow. “Ideally, we would all use low-emission or zero-emission means of transport, but at the moment we cannot afford it,” said Klęczar.

However, a group called the Coalition of Doctors and Scientists for Healthy Air sent an appeal to Kraków city council calling for a clean transport zone to be established. They pointed to research showing that 295 lives could be saved a year by reducing emissions from transport in the city.