Coal accounts for almost half of the world's carbon dioxide emissions and new coal power plants are still being built. China, which finances the majority, even outside its own country, has said it will stop financing foreign projects. But there is much to suggest that this might not the case.
In the town of Tuzla in northern Bosnia, four coal power plants are situated. They emitted over one million tons of carbon dioxide last year alone. There are now plans to build a new one.
- It's a lost cause. It´s a project that should have been cancelled five years ago, says the climate coordinator Denis Žiško.
"Authorities knew that we were being poisoned"
Aside from the carbon dioxide emissions, there are other environmental problems as well, as those who live in the area can attest.
In a nearby village, an unusual number of cancer cases have been diagnosed. Goran Stojak, along with other inhabitants of the village, have been using one of the plants’ ash disposal sites for farming, and the produce has been shown to contain unacceptably high levels of heavy metals.
- People are not moving into this area, they are just leaving. In a few years time it´s going to be like Tjernobyl, no more people, just houses, says Goran Stojak.