This Is How Many Years Air Pollution Will Cut From Your Life Expectancy in India

Posted on June 8, 2016 by Respro® UK Ltd

Living in India’s capital city New Delhi could shorten your life by six years because of the intensity of the air pollution there, a new report showed.

Living in India’s capital city New Delhi could shorten your life by six years because of the intensity of the air pollution there, a new report says.

Inhaling tiny air pollutants reduces the life expectancy of Indians by an average of 3.4 years, with Delhi residents losing 6.3 years, the most of all states, according to a new study by the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology.

Those living in West Bengal and Bihar, which have high levels of air pollution, face a reduction in life expectancy of 6.1 years and 5.7 years respectively.

The study, which used data from the latest population census of 2011, found that exposure to particulate matter 2.5 results in 570,000 premature deaths each year with an additional 12,000 caused by exposure to ozone.

PM 2.5 is tiny particulate matter that is smaller than 2.5 micrometers in diameter. The air pollutants, originating from dust, soot and smoke, can penetrate deep into the lungs, increasing the risk of heart and lung diseases.

“This is a point of concern” since the overall average life expectancy in India is already low at 64 years, the study said.

“Future increase in PM2.5 concentration may worsen the situation.”

Sachin Ghude, one of the authors of the study blamed the expansion of industrial, urban, and traffic emissions for significantly increasing air pollution in India over the past two decades.

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“Upward trends in transportation, industrial and energy sectors, urbanizations, population growth in India along with climate change will raise the levels of O3 and PM2.5 in the future, which could worsen the vulnerability of a growing population,” Mr. Ghude said.

The study found that the northern state of Uttar Pradesh had the highest proportion of deaths due to pollution, making up nearly 15% of the country’s total, while the western state of Maharashtra recorded 10%.

The economic burden of the premature deaths as a result of exposure to air pollutants was about $640 billion in 2011, about 10 times the country’s total expenditure on health during that year, the study said.

Separate research published by the World Health Organization last month revealed that four of the 10 cities in the world with the worst air pollution are located in India. New Delhi has been listed as the 11th worst in the world for air pollution, according to the WHO study.

Source: This Is How Many Years Air Pollution Will Cut From Your Life Expectancy in India – India Real Time – WSJ

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Costa Rica: Volcanic ash contributes to air pollution in San Jose

Posted on June 7, 2016 by Respro® UK Ltd

Volcanologists believe Turrialba Volcano isn’t going to stop erupting any time soon and that could have long-term health effects for people living downwind.

Experts from the Health Ministry and the National University said fine particulate matter from volcanic ash and automobile exhaust is a major public health concern in the Greater Metropolitan Area (GAM), which includes San José and parts of Alajuela, Cartago and Heredia. The area is home to 60 percent of Costa Rica’s population, 70 percent of its vehicle fleet and 85 percent of its industry, according to the National Statistics and Census Institute.

Jorge Herrera, an environmental analyst with the National University, told The Tico Times that Costa Rica does not have elevated levels of large particulate pollution but “where we’re having problems is with the smallest particles.”

Herrera said most volcanic ash is too large to enter someone’s lungs but some is small enough to be considered fine particulate matter — smaller than 2.5 micrometers in diameter — and has the potential to enter the lungs and the bloodstream.

The health risks for super fine ash are higher than for other air pollutants, he said, because ash is acidic and can contain high levels of heavy metals, like nickel, which is carcinogenic. Fine particle pollution can also cause or aggravate cardiovascular and pulmonary problems, according to a new report from the National University that looks at air quality in the GAM between 2013 and 2015.

The average annual amount of fine particle pollution in the GAM ranged between 22 and 25 micrograms per cubic meter (μg/m³) during the last three years, more than double the recommended level set by the World Health Organization. Nevertheless, researchers found no significant increase in pollution during the study period.

Ash blowing in frequently from Turrialba is a recent addition to the metro area’s mélange of air pollution but vehicle exhaust and industry emissions have long been the dominant sources of nitrogen dioxide and other pollutants. Many sites in San José meet Costa Rica’s national guidelines for nitrogen dioxide levels (100 μg/m³) but not the 40 μg/m³ established by the World Health Organization.

Testing sites around the Metropolitan Cathedral showed average levels ranging between 50 and 56 μg/m³ from 2013 to 2015. The air in front of San Juan de Dios Hospital had the highest concentration of nitrogen dioxide, ranging from 63 to 65 μg/m³ over the last three years.

The Health Ministry will soon be equipped for the first time to give the public real-time information to avoid the worst health impacts from air pollution. The ministry has invested ₡400 million (roughly $750,000) in a mobile air quality laboratory. Residents will be able to check the day’s air quality online and see recommendations for at-risk groups, including young children, the elderly or others with respiratory conditions like asthma or bronchitis.

The government is working on several initiatives aimed at curbing air pollution, including charging vehicle-owners an annual fee based on the vehicle’s emissions.

Herrera said Costa Rica also needs to improve fuel quality and provide real public transportation options to cut down on individual car use.

Source: Costa Rica: Volcanic ash contributes to air pollution in San JoseThe Tico Times

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EU dilutes proposal to halve air pollution deaths after UK lobbying 

Posted on June 4, 2016 by Respro® UK Ltd

If implemented, weakened proposal means 14,000 people could die prematurely across Europe each year from 2030

EU states have agreed to water down a proposed law aimed at halving the number of deaths from air pollution within 15 years, after intense lobbying from the UK that cross-party MEPs have condemned as “appalling”.

Some 14,000 people will die prematurely every year across Europe from 2030 as a result, if the weakened proposal is implemented, according to figures cited by the environment commissioner, Karmenu Vella.

The revised proposal is likely to be rejected by the European parliament next week, setting the scene for a public row on 20 June, when Europe’s environment ministers meet to thrash out a compromise.

But EU diplomats said that the UK had been a key player in crafting a blocking minority to kill a more ambitious proposal to bring in measures that would result in a 52% improvement in pollution-related health impacts for citizens around Europe. This translates as a reduction in deaths from conditions such as stroke, heart disease and asthma.

One diplomat said: “They [the UK] gathered some of the environmental attaches in Brussels who they thought would be most willing to follow their line and weaken the directive. They talked to big countries, such as France and Italy, and I think they also discussed with the strongest ones in eastern Europe, like Poland.”

Seb Dance, the Labour parliamentary group’s environmental lead, said the UK was “a leading proponent of watering down the proposed target and [also] seems to be playing a leading role in the coalition of the unwilling”.

If agreed, the lower public health target proposed today – 48.5% – will be used as the basis for setting binding targets over the next 15 years for pollutants such as ammonia, sulphur dioxide (SO2), particulate matter (PM2.5) and nitrogen oxides (NOx).

The UK stance was in part motivated by a desire to protect the dairy sector, despite research indicating that ammonia-based fertilisers – rather than Saharan dust – were responsible for Britain’s worst pollution event in a decade.

A government spokesperson said: “Tackling air pollution is a priority for this government and we are working with EU partners to agree ambitious and fair emission limits for key air pollutants from 2030.”

Conservative MEP Julie Girling said: “The current proposal is simply not good enough and I think it is appalling. I would like to see the UK government leading the rest of Europe towards an ambitious programme. It is disappointing that does not seem to be the case.”

The difference between a 48.5% improvement in public health preferred by the UK and the 52% favoured by parliament “doesn’t sound a lot but that is actually a lot of dying people”, she said.

In a reference to the forthcoming referendum in the UK on EU membership, Girling added: “I understand that some people would say sovereign governments should be making these decisions. But they need to understand that if it were in the hands of our government, we would not be getting anything close to the ambition we think is necessary.”

The government’s own figures show that air pollution is responsible for between 40,000 and 50,000 premature deaths a year. An ongoing breach of the EU’s clean air directive will not be ended before 2025, according to the government’s own plans.

A letter to Liz Truss by the London and Paris mayors, Sadiq Khan and Anne Hidalgo, earlier this week, called for higher binding targets for 2025 as well as 2030, the closing of loopholes and curbs to methane emissions that cause ground level ozone.

Limits on methane, a potent greenhouse gas, had already been removed from an EU proposal seen by the Guardian, after pressure from the UK and other states, including France, Italy and Poland.

Farmers groups, though, argue that methane is currently covered under climate change legislation in the UK and that further emissions reductions need to take their financial situation into account

Diane Mitchell, the National Farmers Union’s environment adviser, said: “Agriculture does have a contribution to make and we are willing to play our part but it is important that if there are targets to be met, they are technically feasible and also affordable to the sector.”

Some 85% of ammonia emissions come from just 20% of the UK’s farms, mostly the largest ones, according to Eurostat data.

Calculations by the European Environmental Bureau (EEB) suggest that ammonia will be responsible for 4,000 of the 11,000 extra British deaths it expects between now and 2030 as a result of the UK’s weakening of the national emissions ceiling directive.

Louise Duprez, the EEB’s senior air quality officer, said: “Air pollution does not respect borders. European action is essential to stop citizens dying prematurely and contracting serious diseases.”

Source: EU dilutes proposal to halve air pollution deaths after UK lobbying | Environment | The Guardian

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Paris Addresses Air Pollution With Ban on Old Cars 

Posted on June 3, 2016 by Respro® UK Ltd

The city is just one of many European cities with an air pollution problem

Paris will ban cars registered before 1997 from traveling in the city center during the day, the latest in a string of measures aimed at tackling the city’s air pollution, city officials said this week.

The announcement, reported by financial newspaper Les Echos, comes as part of a broader tiered system to evaluate which cars can enter the city at any given time. Diesel vehicles manufactured before 2011 will also face particularly tough regulations when the measure takes effect July 1.

Air pollution has reemerged in Paris—along with other major European cities like London—as a key public health issue. The rise is at least in part due to a spike in the prevalence of diesel vehicles. These cars, which were once marketed as clean alternatives, have lower greenhouse gas emissions than their petroleum counterparts, but emit many times the nitrogen dioxide, which contributes to respiratory problems and asthma.

Source: Paris Addresses Air Pollution With Ban on Old Cars | TIME

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NASA satellite finds 39 unreported sources of air pollution

Posted on June 2, 2016 by Respro® UK Ltd

Scientists at NASA’s Environment and Climate Change Canada and researchers at University of Maryland, College Park and Dalhousie University discovered 39 unreported “major” sources of toxic air pollution. Using the space agency’s satellite imaging, the group located the man-made sources where toxic sulfur dioxide is being emitted. Sulfur dioxide (SO2) is a contributor to acid rain and is regulated on the ground by the EPA. However, to properly police the emissions, the government agency has to know the location of the pollutants.

These revelations were made possible by new computer processing tech that can take raw data from the Dutch-Finnish Ozone Monitoring Instrument on NASA’s Aura spacecraft and translate it into sulfur dioxide concentration estimates. The advancements also allow scientists to detect smaller sources, like “oil-related activities” and more modestly-sized power plants.

Using satellite imagery of sulfur dioxide sources, the scientists were able to pinpoint “hotspots,” locating unreported emission sites after analyzing data collected between 2005 and 2014. The study found that the sources were coal-burning power plants, smelters and oil and gas operations mostly in the Middle East, but also located in Mexico and Russia. NASA says that reported emission levels in some of these areas was two to three times lower than the levels scientists found after studying satellite data from the 9-year span.

In total, the unknown sources and the discrepancy in the reported numbers could account for 12 percent of the total human-made sulfur dioxide emissions. That’s quite the swing, and it can potentially have a major impact on the air quality in the regions where the sites are located. The study also found 75 natural sources of SO2, some of which are in unmonitored remote locations. This study was the first to provide annual measurements for those non-active volcanoes that are slowly leaking toxic gas.

Source: NASA satellite finds 39 unreported sources of air pollution

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Air pollution tied to high blood pressure risk 

Posted on June 1, 2016 by Respro® UK Ltd

Short and long-term exposure to air pollution from vehicle exhaust or burning coal is associated with high blood pressure, according to a review of 17 studies.

“Since the 1990s, a hypothesis of air pollution leading to hypertension risk was proposed by many researchers,” said senior author Tao Liu of the Guangdong Provincial Center for Disease Control and Prevention in Guangzhou, China.

The researchers analyzed 17 studies of air pollution and hypertension, defined as blood pressure higher than 140/90 millimeters of mercury (mm Hg). In total, the studies included more than 80,000 people with high blood pressure and more than 220,000 people without it.

They found that short-term exposure to sulfur dioxide from burning fossil fuels and to particulates like dust and dirt in the air were associated with high blood pressure risk, as was long-term exposure to nitrogen dioxide, which comes from power plants and vehicle exhaust.

Short-term exposure to ozone and carbon monoxide were not tied to blood pressure levels, as reported in the journal Hypertension.

Air pollution can cause inflammation and oxidative stress which may lead to changes in the arteries, the authors write.

“There is a linear relationship between air pollution and hypertension, which indicated that even a very low level of air pollution might induce hypertension risk,” Liu told Reuters Health by email. “Therefore, everyone should be concerned about the effects of air pollution on their blood pressure even if there is a very low air pollution level in their living environment.”

“However, it is impossible to remove all of the air pollutants from the environments,” Liu said.

The studies in this review tie pollution to high blood pressure but don’t prove that one causes the other, Liu said.

More studies, especially multi-center studies, are needed to investigate a causal relationship between air pollution and high blood pressure, Liu said.

“Without a clear mechanism we cannot conclude that pollution ‘causes’ hypertension,” said Dr. Gaetano Santulli of Columbia University Medical Center in New York, who was not part of the new study. “However, we should recall (going back to 1954) that epidemiological evaluations provided strong statistical support in linking cigarette smoking and cancer.”

Hypertension affects more than three million people in the U.S.

Quitting smoking, eating healthy, reducing intake of sodium and sugar, reducing chronic stress, and exercising regularly can help reduce the risk of high blood pressure, Santulli told Reuters Health by email.

Source: Air pollution tied to high blood pressure risk | Reuters

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Cities to EU: If you don′t act on air pollution, we will 

Posted on May 31, 2016 by Respro® UK Ltd

Ministers and mayors have signed a pact to increase cities’ efforts to tackle air pollution within the European Union. It comes as national European governments are poised to water down air pollution limits.

Representatives of city governments across Europe signed a pact in Amsterdam on Monday (30.05.2016) pledging to take action on air pollution, as national governments are poised to water down European Union quality rules.

Ministers in charge of urban affairs and city governments issued the “Pact of Amsterdam,” a direct partnership between city governments that seeks to bypass slow movement by national governments and the EU. In addition to air pollution, the pact will tackle housing, integration of migrants and urban poverty.

The initiative is part of a push for more “bottom-up” solutions in the European Union, where city governments are empowered to take more direct action. “There is a reason we have chosen the word ‘pact,'” said Ronald Plasterk, the Dutch interior minister, announcing the signature. “It’s not just Europe that decides that this is what’s going to happen, it’s not member states collectively – it’s all these stakeholders together.”

Cities pressure national governments

The declaration comes just four days before national governments are set to water down proposed EU caps on air pollution at a meeting in Brussels. Authorities from European cities most affected by air pollution have been putting pressure on national governments to change course.

But proposed stricter EU pollution limits are set to be blocked by the United Kingdom, France, Italy, Poland and a handful of other EU countries in a vote on Friday.

The European Commission, the EU’s executive branch, proposed the tighter air pollution limits last year, and the European Parliament have approved these. But national governments have the final say.

On the same day of the pact’s signature, mayors of the French and British capitals published a joint letter to national governments asking them to stick with the more ambitious proposal.

“Estimations by the European Commission suggest that weaker national emissions ceilings would lead to about 16,000 extra deaths in the EU every year,” says the letter, signed by Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo and the new London mayor Sadiq Khan. “This is not acceptable and we require our governments to follow the bold lead taken by our cities in tackling this issue.”

Expensive fines

However, national governments have said some of the existing targets, called national emissions ceilings, are already impossible to meet for some cities, and are resulting in the countries having to pay hefty fines for noncompliance.

They want flexibility that would allow countries to exceed limits during dry summers or cold winters – as long as they meet an average over three years. They also want lower limits than those proposed by the commission, and for some pollutants – such as methane – to be completely exempted.

Can cities fill the void?

Environmental campaign group EEB says the watered-down limits would be a step backward for the EU. Louise Duprez, a campaigner with EEB, says that while she welcomes the Amsterdam Pact initiative, she does not think cities can tackle air pollution on their own.

“Air pollution doesn’t respect borders,” Duprez says. “European action is essential to stop citizens dying prematurely and contracting serious diseases.”

“The fact that mayors representing over 20 million citizens have understood this is great news – we hope that national government are listening,” Duprez added.

Eurocities, an association of governments from 39 European countries, says that in the absence of action by national governments, there is a lot cities can do to fill the void.

“Adopting the Pact of Amsterdam is just a start,” says Johanna Rolland, president of Eurocities and mayor of the French city of Nantes. “What matters now is how we all put our urban agenda into practice.” That includes commitment from the European Commission, she added.

The Pact of Amsterdam is part of the “EU Urban Agenda,” a project spearheaded by the Netherlands, which currently holds the rotating presidency of the EU. The Dutch, who live in the most urbanized country in the EU, are implementing their own “Dutch Urban Agenda” at the national level.

Source: Cities to EU: If you don′t act on air pollution, we will | Environment | DW.COM | 30.05.2016

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The 20 Worst air polluting cities worldwide 

Posted on May 27, 2016 by Respro® UK Ltd

The World Health Organisation has warned that over 80% of people in urban areas around the world are exposed to dangerous levels of air pollution with risk greater in lower and middle-income countries.

Air pollution is the greatest environmental risk to health with three million people dying prematurely every year!

And yet, by the looks of these statistics, some countries are marching on with unsustainable practices as if air pollution is not putting life on earth in danger at all.

The highest levels of small and fine particulate pollution (PM10 and PM2.5) at the moment are recorded in South-East Asia and the Mediterranean.

PM refers to particles less than or equal to 10 micrometers in diameter – so small that they can get into the lungs, potentially causing serious health problems. Ten micrometers is less than the width of a single human hair. Coarse dust particles (PM10) are 2.5 to 10 micrometres in diameter, while finer particles (PM2.5) are less than 2.5 to 10 micrometres.

According to the WHO, Onitsha in Nigeria has the highest levels of PM10 worldwide, followed by Peshawar in Pakistan and Zabol in Iran.

The level of PM10 in Onitsha is nearly 30 times the recommended level.

See this shocking chart:

South Africa has been spearheading many green initiatives on the African continent, with the Department of Environmental Affairs this year again promising to continue investing in green economy. Minister of Environmental Affairs Edna Molewa says the department of transport’s plan is to make South Africa’s regional airports more self-sufficient through solar energy, and so far, SA has launched its second solar powered airport.

The Department of Tourism too, is on board with the solar power plan. During his Tourism budget speech Minister Derek Hanekom said six iconic SA attractions are in line to get a solar power boost in the next financial year.

Source: The 20 Worst air polluting cities worldwide | Traveller24

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