OBILIC
\nFor 30 years, Shemsi Gara operated a giant digger in a Kosovo coal mine, churning up toxic dust that covered his face and got into his airways. Home life wasn\u2019t much better: the power plants that the mine supplies constantly spew fumes over his village.
\nGara died on Sunday aged 55 after three years of treatment failed to contain his lung cancer. In his final days, unable to walk, he lay on a couch at home, gaunt and in pain, as a machine pumped oxygen into his dying body.
\n\u201cI kept telling him I wanted to help, but I couldn\u2019t,\u201d said his wife Xhejlane, who mourned in her living room with friends on Wednesday. \u201cHe would say \u2018Only God knows the pain I have\u2019.\u201d
\nAs much of the world moves to reduce the use of fossil fuels, pollution in Western Balkan countries remains stubbornly high due to household heating, outdated coal plants, old cars, and a lack of money to tackle the problem.
\nRelatively small cities such as Serbia\u2019s capital Belgrade and Bosnia\u2019s capital Sarajevo have frequently topped daily global pollution charts, according to websites that track air quality worldwide.
\nThis has costly health impacts, and could also jeopardize such countries\u2019 prospects of joining the European Union, which has stricter emissions standards.
\n\u201cThere are no resources in the region for the reduction of air pollution,\u201d said Mirko Popovic, a director with the Renewables and Environmental Regulatory Institute think-tank in Belgrade.
\nIn the EU, net greenhouse gas emissions have dropped by about 40 percent since 1990, driven by the embrace of renewable energy, a European Commission report said in November.
\nWestern Balkan nations have pledged to reduce carbon emissions but economic hardship has slowed progress.
\nKosovo, one of Europe\u2019s poorest countries, generates more than 90 percent of its power from coal. The World Bank estimates that a transition to a coal-free economy will cost 4.5 billion euros.
\nSMOG
\nThe impact of pollution is clear across the region, especially in winter.
\nSmog has cloaked Belgrade this week, while Sarajevo sits in a valley that acts as a pollution trap. The Bosnian capital\u2019s air quality was classed as \u201chazardous\u201d on Tuesday, the worst in the world, according to IQAir, which tracks pollution levels.
\nIn North Macedonia\u2019s capital Skopje, mask-wearing locals often lose sight of nearby snow-capped mountains for days.
\nThe rate of deaths attributable to ambient pollution is relatively high \u2014 114 per 100,000 people in Bosnia and around 100 in Serbia and Montenegro, World Health Organization data show, compared with just 45 in Germany and 29 in France.
\nGara was buried on Monday in a cemetery in Obilic, outside Kosovo\u2019s capital Pristina. From the graveside, mourners could hear the chug of a nearby conveyor belt transporting coal from the mine to the power plants.
\nGara\u2019s doctor, Haki Jashari, blamed Gara\u2019s cancer on his years at the coal mine, and on the polluting power plants.
\nCancer rates more than doubled in Obilic over the last two years, Jashari said \u2014 the result, he added, of a generation of exposure to pollutants. He expects it will get worse.
\nKosovo\u2019s energy ministry told Reuters it was committed to reducing emissions and was investing in renewable energy projects and upgrading existing plants.
\nJashari only wishes more could have been done sooner.
\n\u201cThey would have shut the plants down if we were part of the EU. It is unacceptable.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
OBILIC For 30 years, Shemsi Gara operated a giant digger in a Kosovo coal mine, churning up toxic dust that covered his face and got into his airways. Home life wasn\u2019t much better: the power plants that the mine supplies constantly spew fumes over his village. Gara died on Sunday aged 55 after three years […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":457252,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-457214","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n