What do you mean by 'polution' in this case and why do you consider it more important than the carbon emissions in this case?
As kids, we were sick with all kinds of respiratory disease all the time and the air stank like burnt tires.
Burning coal is dirty, dirty, dirty.
Therefore I don't think its misguided to "see the carbon as the enemy".
By the way I live in Slovakia and I was baffled by our previous government stubbornly keeping the dirty hornonitrianske coal mines open through public funding. Even though they are loosing money and it would be cheaper (and much much cleaner) to just pay the miners to do nothing.