Polish coal miners celebrate the day of St. Barbara, their patron saint

Record ID: 1366778

  • Title: Polish coal miners celebrate the day of St. Barbara, their patron saint
  • Date: 4th December 2018
  • Summary: (SOUNDBITE) (Polish) RETIRED MINER, ANDRZEJ BUDZYNSKI, SAYING: "For the next couple of few years I think this celebration will continue to be more important, but later it will quiet down a bit."
  • Embargoed: 18th December 2018 11:53
  • Keywords: COP24 Polish coal miners parade coal in Poland Polish miners day Nikiszowiec Poland miners marching band climate change coal miners
  • Location: NIKISZOWIEC, POLAND
  • City: NIKISZOWIEC, POLAND
  • Country: Poland
  • Topics: Environment
  • Reuters ID: LVA00499J58AV
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: Residents in the Polish mining town of Nikiszowiec had no need for alarm clocks on Tuesday (December 4) as they were woken early in the morning by a miners' brass band parading through the streets to mark the feast day of St. Barbara, the patron saint of miners.
    Every year on December 4 the miners' band, dressed in traditional uniforms, march through the town rousing residents from their beds and before attending church for a celebratory mass.
    Mining is at the heart of the community in Nikiszowiec, home to the Wieczorek coal mine, one of Poland's oldest mines, which closed in March.
    Whilst residents in Nikiszowiec continue to embrace and celebrate their ties to coal mining, the World's leaders begun another day of United Nations climate change talks in the nearby city of Katowice where they will attempt to agree rules on how to shift the world economy from fossil fuels to try to curb rising temperatures.
    The meeting comes as the World Meteorological Organization warned that global temperatures were on course to rise by 3-5 degrees Celsius (5.4-9.0 degrees Fahrenheit) this century, overshooting a global target of limiting the increase to 2C.
    Reaching agreement on how to implement ambitious fossil fuel cuts at the talks could be tough given fears over the impact on industry which have divided the European Union and trade tensions between the United States and China.
    Poland has painful experience of the difficulty of an economic transition from coal and recently announced plans for a new coal mine in the south of the country.
    Its government drew support in part from those with an emotional attachment to the job security, social fabric and national pride associated with mining that overlooked the downside for health and the planet.
    The issue resonates especially with older Poles who remember deadly anti-communist protests in the early 1980s when the miners emerged as heroes.
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