Turkiye fires up coal pollution even as it hosts COP31

AFSIN: Kaddafi Polat rarely mentions his own health after decades of breathing the polluted air blanketing his village beneath the towering chimneys of a coal?fired power plant in southern Turkiye. What troubles him most is his children.

Fine dust settles on cars, laundry and the narrow streets of Cogulhan, a village in the Afsin district of Kahramanmaras province, leaving a grey film over daily life — and over the now-rotting playground where his kids once played.

Afsin?Elbistan is one of the country’s most polluting power plants, environmentalists say, but the government is planning to expand it, even as Turkiye prepares to host the COP31 UN climate summit next November.

“In the mornings, when the school bus comes, dust rises everywhere,” Polat, 52, told AFP at a local coffeehouse.

“Children breathe this in, what will happen when they’re 30 or 40? As a father, you worry.”