Mitsaris, whose father also worked in coal mining, bought 44 hectares of vineyards. But now he wonders if he made the right choice – the coal here refuses to give up.
“I’m afraid of the future,” he said. “I have two young daughters to raise.”
Just a year ago, Greece was confident of closing all existing coal-burning plants by 2023. It plans to build one last coal plant this year in the wider region where Mitsaris, Western Macedonia, which produces more than half of the country’s electricity. The new plant, Ptolemaida 5, will in 2025 run on natural gas, another polluting fossil fuel, but one that is generally less carbon-intensive than lignite, or brown coal, found in this part of Greece.
That whole timeline is up in smoke.
The changes are already shining. In June 2021, coal generated 253.9 gigawatt hours (GWh) of electricity. This June, coal was responsible for 468.1 GWh, almost double the amount.
And this as the country battles wildfires on the mainland and on its islands, fueled by a scorching heat wave fueled by climate change – mostly from people burning fossil fuels like of coal. Fires have left homes in ashes, people have been rescued from beaches and business owners on islands like Lesbos are facing an economically painful holiday season.
Big life choices, like where to live and work, are hard to make when government plans keep changing. For Mitsaris, leaving his village where he was born and raised is not an option now.
“My wife used to work in a milk factory, which also closed a few years ago. They offered her a job in Athens but then my salary was enough to support the whole family, so we decided to stay, ” he said. “If I had known we would end up in our current situation, I would have gone to Athens long ago.”
The Greek government is trying to convince people that its return to coal is only temporary. But the resurgence of coal is tempting the people of Western Macedonia back into industry.
The PPC energy company offers steady work to thousands of people in Western Macedonia, where almost 1 in 5 are unemployed.
Here — where everyone talks of coal as “a blessing and a curse” — a return to fossil fuels could make all the difference between staying and leaving.
Many have left the bigger cities, or even moved abroad, to find a new life.
A village of decay
But the transition always comes with challenges — primarily, what opportunities can the country offer former workers in coal towns?
In Western Macedonia — which provides 80% of Greece’s coal — the PPC has taken dozens of villages so it can mine the coal beneath them, moving entire communities to the peripheries. And they are the lucky ones.
During this awkward in-between phase — when coal is still being mined but its years are numbered — the residents of Akrini village find themselves unable to move, even as everything around them collapses.
Residents here are in a more than a decade-long dispute with the PPC, which says they are entitled to compensation that would help them move out of the village, which has been exposed to high levels of ash for years. from the coal operations surrounding them. They successfully lobbied for the right to transfer, which is now enshrined in a 2011 law.
The PPC told CNN in an email that it is not responsible for the people in the village, and did not respond to follow-up questions when presented with the law that states they are entitled to relocation assistance in 2021.
Charalambos Mouratidis, 26, doesn’t really know what to do next.
Like Mitsaris, he sought to make a new life after leaving a PPC job in a coal mine, where his father also worked. But Mouratidis doesn’t have the same kind of job security as his father. He worked shifts for eight months on a short-term contract cleaning ash from machinery inside the mine. The instability, low pay and the heavy impact of the toxic ash on his health pushed him out of the industry.
He now runs a cattle farm, sitting on a hill overlooking Akrini as plumes of smoke and steam rise from the chimneys and cooling towers of the coal plants around it in behind.
In addition to his cattle ranch, he works a second job at a solar panel company, typically putting in 13 hours a day between them to make ends meet.
Working for the solar panel company is a green job that gives Mouratidis extra income. But solar expansion also takes up a lot of land, leaving little for cultivation or grazing, so getting permission to expand the Akrini farm is nearly impossible, he said.
Apart from the solar farms, all other infrastructure projects in Akrini have been cancelled. The village was left to slowly die.
“I started farming, hoping to have some kind of a stronger future, and now even that effort is in jeopardy,” Mouratidis said. “Everything has come to a dead end in this village.”
What’s next
The Greek government has drawn up a 7.5 billion euro ($7.9 billion) plan to help the country transform from a fossil fuel-based economy into a green new nation. Its Just Transition Development Plan, as it is known across the European Union, received 1.63 billion euros in EU funding.
Western Macedonia is a focus of the plan and should receive more money, partly to become a center for renewables in the country. And while the plan is welcomed by many people here, many doubt that it will all be achieved in six years before the last coal plant goes offline.
Mouratidis doubts the money will help him.
“I’m not sure that most of it will reach people like me, who run small businesses. Some money will go to those who openly support the current government and most of it will stay with those who manage these funds ,” he said. “This is what history has shown us. Even during Covid-19, the support given by large companies and businesses is much higher than the support we got.”
But not all hope is lost. As many workers moved from coal to agriculture, some EU support continued. Just a few kilometers from Akrini, Nikos Koltsidas and Stathis Paschalidis are trying to create sustainable solutions for those who lost their jobs in the green transition, and who are willing to participate in sheep and goat farming.
“We want to create a network of farms that are self-sustainable, in relation to the environment and animals, that will require very low capital from new farmers,” said Paschalidis, his sheep which bleeds behind.
Koltsidas said he wants to spread the word to the local population that farming is not what it used to be, and can provide a strong future. “There is no need for the effort that was done in the past, where the farmer had to be in the field all day, grazing the animals or milking them with their hands,” he said.
“For those who are thinking about going back to coal work, they should look at all the regions that are thriving without it,” he said. “There’s no need to stay stuck with these old PPC models.”
