How to deal with bothersome air quality targets
If air pollution limits are a problem, lower them, and the problem is solved.
Some years ago, when living in southeast London, I was part of a citizen science initiative studying air pollution in excess of EU-defined legal limits. Specifically, my neighbours and I measured levels of nitrogen dioxide (NO2) in the air along busy roads near to residential areas, and passed the data to academic experts at Kings College London for detailed analysis. NO2, produced in the exhausts of diesel vehicles, is responsible for the brown haze one sees on the horizon in urban areas. It is the cause of many premature deaths from respiratory disease.
The thing about legally binding pollution limits is that they are something of a moveable feast. While the prescribed numbers are not arbitrary, the causal link between pollution levels and morbidity in particular places is sufficiently ill-defined that government agencies choose to work around the limits.
I’ve given NO2 pollution as an example, but another is fine particulate matter. Particles or droplets less than 2.5 millions of a metre in size, known as PM2.5, are able to travel deep into the respiratory tract and lungs, where they can lead to serious and deadly diseases. They also result in short-term health effects such as eye, nose, throat and lung irritation, coughing, sneezing, runny nose, and shortness of breath, and exacerbate medical conditions such as asthma and heart disease.
Commenting on new legally-binding air quality targets set by the UK government, the British Safety Council (BSC) has warned that these fall well short of what is needed to keep people safe. According to BSC chairman Peter McGettrick,…
“It is disappointing that, given what we now know about the risks to people’s health from air pollution, this is where we have ended up on the new legally binding air quality targets.
“The Government wanted to be ambitious. And, yes, they will address small particulate matter for the first time. But they fall well short of being ambitious, and they won’t get us anywhere near what the World Health Organisation (WHO) says the limit should be for PM2.5.”
Back in September 2021, the World Health Organisation completed a review of its air quality guidelines, and halved the previous PM2.5 limit to 5 microgrammes per cubic metre. In contrast, the new UK target is 10 microgrammes by 2040.
Note that the UK’s limits have yet to come into force, the government having failed to meet its own deadline of December 2022 for implementing the new Environment Act. In the face of such inaction, it is left to local government to do its own thing.
We are seeing a number of cities introduce Clean Air Zones, Newcastle being the latest, in which drivers of the most polluting vehicles are charged to enter the zones. The problem here is that local authorities are an easier target than central government for legal action by aggrieved business interests. With the UK being a unitary state with power concentrated in Westminster, the decisions of local councils are frequently overridden by a central state so easily swayed by corporate lobbying.