Skopje Will Build a Chimney Register: the New Air Plan to 2031 Offers 100 Electric Buses, but Doesn't Say Who Pays

The City of Skopje, together with UNDP, presented the draft plan for improving air quality 2027-2031 at a public hearing. The headline novelty is a chimney register, a digital record of every source of polluting emissions, from industrial facilities to households. For the first time, the document is being drawn up on a digital platform.

The figures from the State Automatic Monitoring System are as two-sided as the problem itself. Skopje's air exceeds the permitted levels of PM10 and PM2.5 every single year. At the same time, the volume of pollution was cut by between 40 and 50 percent from 2015 to 2025. It's better. It's still not healthy.

Measures we know by heart

For households: expanding district heating, phasing out wood stoves, subsidies for solar systems and heat pumps. For traffic: 100 electric buses, a low-emission zone in the centre, bus rapid transit and a bigger cycling network. For industry: stricter controls and the best available technologies. Also on the list are street washing, dust control on construction sites and regular chimney cleaning.

Anyone who has lived through even one Skopje winter has heard this list before. Bus rapid transit and expanding district heating have been mentioned for years. The new plan lists the measures, but critics note it doesn't clearly define which institution will monitor their implementation, and on financing there are only proposals.

Elena Nikolovska from Eko svest says the draft is a good basis, but it has to be aligned with the new laws on air quality and industrial emissions, and it needs secured money and capacity. She also wants the measure on fossil gas for households replaced with support for renewables and energy efficiency, as well as more public hearings before adoption.

A chimney register is a good idea. But Skopje isn't choking for lack of records - it's choking for lack of measures actually carried out. Who will answer in 2031 if the air is once again breaking the limits every year?