From Solid Fuel Combustion to Clean Urban Air: Civil Activism and Low-Carbon Energy Transition in Kraków, Poland

This article examines how grassroots civic mobilization can drive the transition from solid fuel combustion to low-emission urban heating systems, using the Kraków Smog Alert (KSA) as a case study. Employing the Multi-Level Perspective (MLP) framework alongside sociological theories of resource mobilization, frame analysis, and political opportunity structures, the study analyses the mechanisms through which civil society actors can shape energy policy and accelerate emission reduction at the urban scale. The empirical focus is the city of Kraków, Poland, historically one of Europe’s most severely air-polluted cities due to widespread domestic coal and wood combustion for heating. The study draws on documentary analysis, legislative records, stakeholder mapping, and expert interviews conducted within the CO-SUSTAIN research project (Horizon Europe, 2024–2026). The investigation traces KSA’s trajectory from a social media initiative founded in 2012 to the Polish Smog Alert, a national coalition encompassing nearly fifty local groups, culminating in a binding municipal ban on solid fuel combustion in 2019 and a subsequent reduction in PM2.5 concentrations exceeding 60% by 2023. Key strategic mechanisms identified include reactive scaling, health-based reframing of air quality as a public health issue, media amplification, and cooperative institutional engagement with regulatory bodies. An MLP chronological analysis spanning 1945 to 2024 maps landscape, regime, and niche dynamics that enabled the anti-smog energy transition; stakeholder mapping spans actors across NGOs, public institutions, media, and civil society. Findings demonstrate that landscape-level pressure from EU air quality and environmental protection directives alone was insufficient to drive regime change in domestic fuel use without credible, evidence-based niche actors capable of building alliances with institutional stakeholders. The findings offer transferable insights for coal-dependent cities across Central and Eastern Europe seeking to replace solid fuel heating with low-emission alternatives through integrated approaches combining environmental monitoring, energy policy reform, and civic governance. These findings matter for cities across Central and Eastern Europe still reliant on solid-fuel domestic heating, offering evidence-based guidance for civil society organizations and municipal policymakers seeking to accelerate the low-emission transition while protecting public health.