Timaru’s air pollution the worst in Australasia, figures reveal 

Posted on May 19, 2016 by Respro® UK Ltd

Timaru’s air pollution levels are the worst in Australasia, new figures released by the World Health Organisation (WHO) show.Timaru’s annual mean levels of PM10 particles and PM2.5 particles were both above the air pollution level recommended as safe by the WHO.PM10 and PM2.5 particles are used to measure air quality levels. The particles are so small that they can get into the lungs, potentially causing serious health problems.

Timaru’s air pollution levels are the worst in Australasia, new figures released by the World Health Organisation (WHO) show.

Timaru’s annual mean levels of PM10 particles and PM2.5 particles were both above the air pollution level recommended as safe by the WHO.

PM10 and PM2.5 particles are used to measure air quality levels. The particles are so small that they can get into the lungs, potentially causing serious health problems.

As urban air quality declines, the risk of strokes, heart disease, lung cancer, and chronic and acute respiratory diseases including asthma, increases for the people who live in them, the WHO states.

Christchurch was the worst of New Zealand’s major cities, while Wellington and Auckland’s air was found to be much cleaner.

While the level of air pollution in Timaru presented “some risk”, Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment Dr Jan Wright said there was no reason to panic.

Timaru had a PM2.5 annual mean level of 15 micrograms per cubic metre, and a PM10 level of 28 micrograms per cubic metre.

The WHO guidelines state that levels of 10 and 20 micrograms per cubic metre respectively are considered safe.

Wright released a report into New Zealand’s air quality in 2015. She found that a lot of progress had been made in improving air quality, but there was still real evidence of harm to New Zealanders’ health.

Following the release of the updated WHO air quality database, Wright said an increasing reliance on heat pumps rather than woodburners would improve the country’s air quality in the future.

“Air quality over time has got a whole lot better in New Zealand, and will continue to do so.

“People get the idea that if you’re below the guidelines then everything’s fine, and if you’re about then everything’s terrible. That’s not the case at all.”

Environment Canterbury (ECan) measures dirty air in PM10, particulate matter less than 10 micrometres in diameter. Readings higher than 50 are considered to be high pollution levels.

Timaru has recorded two high pollution nights this year, with levels of 55 and 51 respectively. Washdyke has recorded one high pollution night.

From September this year, Timaru cannot have any more than three high pollution nights a year to meet the national air quality target.

Timaru had 26 high air pollution readings in 2015.

ECan air spokeswoman Katherine Trought said ECan was concerned about the high levels of PM10 in Timaru as there was no safe level for air pollution.

Due to the combined effects of high emissions and South Canterbury’s weather and landscape, during calm winter nights pollution could be trapped in a layer of cold air near the surface, she said.

Winter air pollution was usually worse in the evenings as that was when most people used their log burners, and the rapid cooling of the ground created a layer of cold air that trapped emissions.

“Everyone has a role to play in improving winter air quality, and as well as wood burner users, we are working with industry, land managers, farmers and developers. This winter, we’re asking wood burner users to do their bit too.”

MP for Rangitata, National’s Jo Goodhew, said she was “heartened” by ECan’s educational approach. Goodhew said people sometimes visited her Timaru electorate office about the issue, including some who were  concerned about having to change their fireplaces.

According to the new WHO database, levels of ultra-fine particles of less than 2.5 microns were highest in India, which has 16 of the world’s 30 most polluted cities.

China had improved its air quality since 2011 and now had only five cities in the top 30. Nine other countries, including Pakistan and Iran, had one city each in the worst 30.

The most polluted city in Australia was Geraldton, north of Perth.

New Zealand’s air quality (micrograms per cubic metre)

Christchurch

PM10: 21

PM2.5: 10

Dunedin

PM10: 18

PM2.5: 9

Wellington

PM10: 10

PM2.5: 5

Auckland

PM10: 14

PM2.5: 6

* An earlier version of this city said Timaru’s air quality was the worst in Oceania. This was incorrect, it is the worst in Australasia.

Source: Timaru’s air pollution the worst in Australasia, figures reveal | Stuff.co.nz

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How are cities around the world tackling air pollution? 

Posted on May 18, 2016 by Respro® UK Ltd

More cycling, better public transport and car bans – cities from Delhi to Zurich are using a range of initiatives to lower traffic pollution and improve health

Paris

Paris bans cars in many historic central districts at weekends, imposes odd-even bans on vehicles, makes public transport free during major pollution events and encourages car- and bike-sharing programmes. A long section of the Right Bank of the river Seine is now car-free and and a monthly ban on cars has come into force along the Champs-Elysées.

Delhi

Reports that pollution levels in Delhi matched those in Beijing spurred the city to ban all new large diesel cars and SUVs with engines of more than 2,000CC and to phase out tens of thousands of diesel taxis. The city has experimented with alternately banning cars with odd and even number plates and is now encouraging Uber-style minibuses on demand. Other cities considering diesel bans are Dublin and Brussels.

The Netherlands

Politicians want to ban the sale of all petrol and diesel cars from 2025, allowing only electric or hydrogen vehicles. The proposed new law would allow anyone who already owns a petrol or diesel car to continue using it. Most cities encourage bicycle use.

Freiburg

Freiburg in Germany has 500km of bike routes, tramways, and a cheap and efficient public transport system. One suburb, Vauban, forbids people to park near their homes and makes car-owners pay €18,000 for a space on the edge of town. In return for living without a car, people are offered cheaper housing, free public transport, and plentiful bicycle spaces.

Copenhagen

Copenhagen prioritises bikes over cars and now has more cycles than people. The city calculates that one mile on a bike is worth $0.42 [27p] to society, while one mile in a car is a 15p ($0.20) loss. Large parts of the Danish capital have been closed to vehicles for decades and the city plans to become carbon neutral by 2025.

Oslo

Oslo plans to halve its climate emissions by 2020 and proposes a large no-car zone, the building of 40 miles of new bike lanes, steep congestion charges, a rush-hour fee for motorists, and the removal of many parking spaces.

Helsinki

The Finnish capital plans to drastically reduce the number of cars on its streets by investing heavily in better public transport, imposing higher parking fees, encouraging bikes and walking and converting inner city ring roads into residential and walking areas. The idea is to make the city’s public transport so good that no one will want a car by 2050.

Zurich

Zurich has capped the number of parking spaces in the city, only allows a certain number of cars into the city at any one time, and is building more car-free areas, plazas, tram lines and pedestrianised streets. The result has been a dramatic reduction in traffic jams, and less pollution.

Curitiba

The southern Brazilian city of 2 million people has one of the biggest and lowest cost bus systems in the world. Nearly 70% of the city goes to work by public transport and the result is pollution-free air and traffic-free streets.

Bangalore

The Indian city is converting its 6,000 buses to compressed natural gas and discouraging the car. So far, says the city, it has reduced traffic pollution by about 20% in a few years and one in four people who used to travel by car now use public transport.

Source: How are cities around the world tackling air pollution? | Environment | The Guardian

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Polluted dust can impact ocean life thousands of miles away, study says

Posted on May 18, 2016 by Respro® UK Ltd

As climatologists closely monitor the impact of human activity on the world’s oceans, researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have found yet another worrying trend impacting the health of the Pacific Ocean.

A new modeling study conducted by researchers in Georgia Tech’s School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences shows that for decades, air pollution drifting from East Asia out over the world’s largest ocean has kicked off a chain reaction that contributed to oxygen levels falling in tropical waters thousands of miles away.

“There’s a growing awareness that oxygen levels in the ocean may be changing over time,” said Taka Ito, an associate professor at Georgia Tech. “One reason for that is the warming environment – warm water holds less gas. But in the tropical Pacific, the oxygen level has been falling at a much faster rate than the temperature change can explain.”

The study, which was published May 16 in Nature Geoscience, was sponsored by the National Science Foundation, a Georgia Power Faculty Scholar Chair and a Cullen-Peck Faculty Fellowship.

In the report, the researchers describe how air pollution from industrial activities had raised levels of iron and nitrogen – key nutrients for marine life – in the ocean off the coast of East Asia. Ocean currents then carried the nutrients to tropical regions, where they were consumed by photosynthesizing phytoplankton.

But while the tropical phytoplankton may have released more oxygen into the atmosphere, their consumption of the excess nutrients had a negative effect on the dissolved oxygen levels deeper in the ocean.

“If you have more active photosynthesis at the surface, it produces more organic matter, and some of that sinks down,” Ito said. “And as it sinks down, there’s bacteria that consume that organic matter. Like us breathing in oxygen and exhaling CO2, the bacteria consume oxygen in the subsurface ocean, and there is a tendency to deplete more oxygen.”

That process plays out in all across the Pacific, but the effects are most pronounced in tropical areas, where dissolved oxygen is already low.

Athanasios Nenes, a professor in the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences and the School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at Georgia Tech who worked with Ito on the study, said the research is the first to describe just how far reaching the impact of human industrial activity can be.

“The scientific community always thought that the impact of air pollution is felt in the vicinity of where it deposits ,” said Nenes, who also serves as Georgia Power Faculty Scholar. “This study shows that the iron can circulate across the ocean and affect ecosystems thousands of kilometers away.”

While evidence had been mounting that global climate change may have an impact on future oxygen levels, Ito and Nenes were spurred to search for an explanation for why oxygen levels in the tropics had been declining since the 1970s.

To understand how the process worked, the researchers developed a model that combines atmospheric chemistry, biogeochemical cycles, and ocean circulation. Their model maps out how polluted, iron-rich dust that settles over the Northern Pacific gets carried by ocean currents east toward North America, down the coast and then back west along the equator.

In their model, the researchers accounted for other factors that can also impact oxygen levels, such as water temperature and ocean current variability.

Whether due to warming sea waters or an increase in iron pollution, the implications of growing oxygen-minimum zones are far reaching for marine life.

“Many living organisms depend on oxygen that is dissolved in seawater,” Ito said. “So if it gets low enough, it can cause problems, and it might change habitats for marine organisms.”

Occasionally, waters from low oxygen areas swell to the coastal waters, killing or displacing populations of fish, crabs and many other organisms. Those “hypoxic events” may become more frequent as the oxygen-minimum zones grow, Ito said.

The increasing phytoplankton activity is a double-edged sword, Ito said.

“Phytoplankton is an essential part of the living ocean,” he said. “It serves as the base of food chain and absorbs atmospheric carbon dioxide. But if the pollution continues to supply excess nutrients, the process of the decomposition depletes oxygen from the deeper waters, and this deep oxygen is not easily replaced.”

The study also expands on the understanding of dust as a transporter of pollution, Nenes said.

“Dust has always attracted of a lot of interest because of its impact on the health of people,” Nenes said. “This is really the first study showing that dust can have a huge impact on the health of the oceans in ways that we’ve never understood before. It just raises the need to understand what we’re doing to marine ecosystems that feed populations worldwide.”

Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2016-05-polluted-impact-ocean-life-thousands.html#jCp

Source: Polluted dust can impact ocean life thousands of miles away, study says

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Farms a major source of air pollution, study finds

Posted on May 17, 2016 by Respro® UK Ltd

Emissions from farms outweigh all other human sources of fine-particulate air pollution in much of the United States, Europe, Russia and China, according to new research. The culprit: fumes from nitrogen-rich fertilizers and animal waste combine in the air with combustion emissions to form solid particles, which constitute a major source of disease and death, according to the new study.

Emissions from farms outweigh all other human sources of fine-particulate air pollution in much of the United States, Europe, Russia and China, according to new research. The culprit: fumes from nitrogen-rich fertilizers and animal waste combine in the air with combustion emissions to form solid particles, which constitute a major source of disease and death, according to the new study.

The good news is if combustion emissions decline in coming decades, as most projections say, fine-particle pollution will go down even if fertilizer use doubles as expected, according to the new study published in Geophysical Research Letters, a journal of the American Geophysical Union.

Agricultural air pollution comes mainly in the form of ammonia, which enters the air as a gas from heavily fertilized fields and livestock waste. It then combines with pollutants from combustion–mainly nitrogen oxides and sulfates from vehicles, power plants and industrial processes–to create tiny solid particles, or aerosols, no more than 2.5 micrometers across, about 1/30 the width of a human hair.

Aerosols can penetrate deep into lungs, causing heart or pulmonary disease. A 2015 study in the journal Nature estimates they cause at least 3.3 million deaths each year globally, and a recent study in Geophysical Research Letters found they cause over 500,000 annual deaths in India alone.

Many regional studies, especially in the United States, have shown agricultural pollution to be a prime source of fine-particulate precursors, but the new study is one of the first to look at the phenomenon worldwide and to project future trends. The study’s results show more than half the aerosols in much of the eastern and central United States come from farming.

“This is not against fertilizer–there are many places, including Africa, that need more of it,” said Susanne Bauer, an atmospheric scientist at Columbia University’s Center for Climate Systems Research and NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York and lead author of the study. “We expect population to go up, and to produce more food, we will need more fertilizer.”

The fact that agricultural emissions must combine with other pollutants to make aerosols is good news, according to Bauer. Most projections say tighter regulations, cleaner sources of electricity and higher-mileage vehicles will cut industrial emissions enough by the end of this century that farm emissions will be starved of the other ingredients necessary to create aerosols, she said.

“You might expect air quality would decline if ammonia emissions go up, but this shows it won’t happen, provided the emissions from combustion go down,” said Fabien Paulot, an atmospheric chemist with Princeton University and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration who was not involved in the study. That means pollutants other than ammonia should probably be targeted for abatement, he said.

Johannes Lelieveld, lead author of the 2015 Nature study, disagreed. “One should be cautious about suggesting that food production could be increased” without increasing pollution, because that “critically depends” on the assumption that societies will successfully curb industrial emissions, he said. Lelieveld pointed out that even with recent reductions in industrial pollution, most nations, including the United States, still have large areas that exceed the World Meteorological Organization’s recommended maximum of particulate matter.

If future industrial emissions do go down, much farm-produced ammonia will end up in Earth’s troposphere, roughly 2 to 10 kilometers (1 to 6 miles) above the surface, Bauer said. There, lightning and other natural processes may also help create fine particulates, but most of these particles would be trapped by raindrops and harmlessly removed from the atmosphere, she said.

Source: Farms a major source of air pollution, study finds — ScienceDaily

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Air pollution is damaging to mental health

Posted on May 17, 2016 by Respro® UK Ltd

Earth Day helps create awareness on how environmental issues affect us all. And one of the biggest challenges we face today is the health effects brought by airborne pollution.

Every year, the region’s air is choked by the haze. The haze last year was one of the worst on record.

Cities in Sumatra and Kalimantan saw more than 500,000 cases of acute respiratory tract infections have been reported between July and October.

The region’s Pollutant Standard Index ( PSI ) reached close to 2,000. Anything above 300 is considered hazardous.

Although the health effects of air pollution are apparent, less known is the psychological effect it has on our behavior and consequently our performance in the workplace.

In our study we focused on a behavioral theory known as ego depletion — the idea that an individual’s self-control draws upon a limited pool of mental resources; one that can be used up and needs opportunities to restore.

Air pollution can drain our self-control resources psychologically, causing a range of conditions including insomnia, feelings of anxiety or even depression.

Through a diary-based study of 161 full-time employees in various industries, our research examined how pollution affects two kinds of behavior — organisational citizenship behaviour and counterproductive workplace behaviour.

Organisational citizenship behaviour relates to employee actions that contribute towards the functioning of the firm, but are optional and not specifically part of their job.
These include an individual’s willingness to help others or to engage with their team beyond their job scope.

Counterproductive behaviour is the opposite. These include working on personal matters during work hours, as well as rudeness, hostility or even outright bullying towards colleagues.

We asked participants for their perception of pollution levels, their level of mental resource depletion as well as organizational citizenship and counterproductive workplace behaviours.

There was a clear link between high air pollution and decreased levels of organisational citizenship behaviour.

We also observed that increased pollution saw a corresponding and marked increase in counterproductive workplace behaviour.

We found that air pollution leads to a decrease in self-control resource, which in turn leads to increased counterproductive and decreased organisational citizenship behaviours.

Specifically the data gathered showed that the severity of air pollution accounted for an average of around 10 percent of an individual’s daily self-control resource depletion.

The impact of air pollution makes us less giving or engaged at work and more deviant.

In line with ego depletion theory it is apparent that both the direct physiological impact of air pollution and the individual’s own perception of its severity act to deplete resources affecting self-control.

A worker may experience little or no health effects from pollution while another in the same office may suffer badly.

Likewise one individual’s perception of what constitutes “severe” pollution may be very different from another.

An essential factor in determining an individual’s ability to manage the effects of drained self-control resources is the support they receive — or feel they receive — from those around them. For example, demonstrations of active support from the firm can go some way to replenish an employee’s mental resource pool.

Indeed our study also found that the negative effects of air pollution on employees’ behaviour were mitigated when organisational support was high — i.e. when the employee perceived that their supervisor or firm was concerned for their well-being.

There were firms that were supportive by providing additional work breaks or the option to work from home on high pollution days, or they may provide easier and better access to healthcare.

While this favours the argument that firms should do all that they can to support employees exposed to severe air pollution, all of this comes with a cost to the firm.

The worse the pollution gets, the higher the costs multiply for business — so at a broader level the best option would obviously be if there were no pollution at all.

Unfortunately the cost of pollution to Indonesia’s economy is huge.

In October last year, the Indonesian government estimated that the financial damage to its country could cost as high as US$35 billion (S$47.9 billion).

According to a World Bank study, for just the two months of February and March in 2014, the forest fires that caused the haze cost the Riau province S$935 million of lost productivity and trade.

By conducting studies like ours, we can better understand the true social and economic implications of pollution, and in turn add weight to the financial argument for stronger and more effective policies to tackle pollution at source.

Source: Air pollution is damaging to mental health: The Jakarta Post columnist , SE Asia News & Top Stories – The Straits Times

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On a Scale of 1 to 10, the Air Pollution in Fort McMurray is a 38 

Posted on May 17, 2016 by Respro® UK Ltd

It’s been almost two weeks since a monster fire took a nasty turn in Fort McMurray Alberta, and the air quality is so bad that it will likely delay the return of residents.

At a press conference on Monday, Alberta premier Rachel Notley said that on a scale of one to 10 that the province usually uses to measure the quality of air — 10 being the worst — Fort Mac read 38 that morning.

The index measures contaminants, smoke, ozone, and nitrogen dioxide.

“It is clear that this is something that could potentially delay recovery work and a return to the community,” Notley said at a news conference.

The reading means that officials are limiting the working hours of their staff in the city, and making use of proper face masks.

According to the province’s Air Quality Health Index, only Fort McMurray registers above 10, and it is expected that the air quality will remain that high for the next few days.

The Environment ministry is recommending that residents in the area avoid physical activities outdoors, especially children and the elderly.

The fires are also affecting other communities nearby. In nearby Fort McKay — just north of Fort McMurray where evacuees displaced by the fire have felt shelter, but which is itself facing a voluntary evacuation order — the air quality index currently sits at seven. The forecast, however, expects that the smoke will push that metric past 10 in that community as well. There is a similar forecast for Anzac, which is just south of the fires.

By comparison, Calgary and Edmonton — Alberta’s two largest cities — have scores of three and five, respectively.

The Fort McMurray wildfire, which forced more than 80,000 people to flee and fan out across the province, is now about 285,000 hectares and only 10 to 12 kilometers from the border of Saskatchewan. All told, there are 15 fires burning across the province, including one northwest of Edmonton near Fox Creek and a gas plant that forced another evacuation. Almost 2,000 firefighters are out battling all the blazes, with 161 helicopters, 29 air tankers and 377 pieces of heavy equipment.

Notley noted that the “fire conditions are really as bad now as they were on the first day of the fire and we expect a lot of fire activity today.”

Source: On a Scale of 1 to 10, the Air Pollution in Fort McMurray is a 38 | VICE News

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Glasgow breaches WHO air pollution safety levels 

Posted on May 16, 2016 by Respro® UK Ltd

Glasgow has been named among 11 urban areas in the UK and Ireland which have breached air pollution safety levels.

The city featured in the data published by the World Health Organisation (WHO).

The health body warned poor air quality caused more than three million deaths around the world every year.

A spokeswoman for Glasgow City Council said it took its responsibility to monitor air quality “very seriously” and its data showed it met air pollution targets in 2015.

As air quality declines, the risk of stroke, heart disease, lung cancer, and chronic and acute respiratory diseases, including asthma, increases among residents, WHO said.

One way the global health body assesses air quality is by examining the levels of a type of pollution known as particulate matter (PMs).

Glasgow was one of a number of places which breached the safe limit set for PM10.

Port Talbot, Stanford-Le-Hope, London, Scunthorpe, Leeds, Eastbourne, Nottingham, Southampton and Oxford, as well the town of Longford in Ireland, also exceeded the safe level.

More than 40 towns and cities across Britain and Ireland breached the safe levels for another measure known as PM2.5.

Glasgow and Prestonpans in East Lothian featured on that list.

WHO said that across the world 80% of cities that measure outdoor air pollution are failing to meet its guidance for safe levels of air quality.

Dr Flavia Bustreo, WHO’s assistant director general for family, women and children’s health, said: “When dirty air blankets our cities, the most vulnerable urban populations – the youngest, oldest and poorest – are the most impacted.”

Jenny Bates, Friends of the Earth air pollution campaigner, said air pollution caused 40,000 early deaths a year in the UK.

He added: “This is a public health crisis. It’s time it was treated that way.

“We need fewer and cleaner vehicles with a Clean Air Zone in every city and large town – and politicians must urgently introduce a diesel scrappage scheme to get the worst polluting vehicles off our roads, as well as more investment in alternatives to driving.”

‘Swift action’

Dr Penny Woods, chief executive of the British Lung Foundation, said the report was “deeply concerning”.

“It is clear from this report that the UK is facing an air pollution crisis,” she said.

“Unfortunately, the government’s response so far has been inadequate. Swift action must be taken to reduce pollution levels in the UK and protect our lung health.”

A spokeswoman for Glasgow City Council said: “Glasgow has set a target of being one of the most sustainable cities in Europe and we take our responsibility to monitor air quality very seriously.

“In fact the latest data for air quality in the city shows that both the Scottish Air Quality Objective and WHO target level for the pollutants PM10 and PM2.5 were met across the city in 2015.

“While we have made good progress, we recognise there is more to be done. The council is a key partner in the Scottish government’s Clean Air for Scotland Strategy which is intended to define the path to achieving full compliance with the relevant air quality standards over the next few years.”

A total of 40 towns and cities in the UK and Ireland breached safe levels for fine particles in the air, known as PM2.5, according to WHO.

  • Glasgow
  • Scunthorpe
  • Leeds
  • Eastbourne
  • Salford
  • London
  • Southampton
  • Longford, Ireland
  • Port Talbot
  • Birmingham
  • Stanford-Le-Hope
  • Chepstow
  • Portsmouth
  • Stoke-on-Trent
  • Oxford
  • Thurrock
  • Warrington
  • Armagh
  • Cardiff
  • Bray, Ireland
  • Norwich
  • Leamington Spa
  • Newport
  • Bristol
  • Wigan
  • Manchester
  • York
  • Hull
  • Nottingham
  • Plymouth
  • Swansea
  • Carlisle
  • Prestonpans
  • Liverpool
  • Belfast
  • Londonderry
  • Brighton
  • Galway, Ireland
  • Middlesbrough
  • Birkenhead
  • Saltash
  • Southend
  • Dublin, Ireland

Source: Glasgow breaches WHO air pollution safety levels – BBC News

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UK accused of trying to undermine EU air pollution targets 

Posted on May 16, 2016 by Respro® UK Ltd

Leaked papers reveal that Tory MEPs were told to support a ‘get-out clause’ in proposed new Europe-wide laws

The British government has been accused of trying to secretly undermine new EU air pollution targets in favour of big business, as leaked papers reveal that Conservative MEPs were told to support a “get-out clause” in proposed laws.

Legislation designed to force member states to strictly limit the emission of sulphur dioxide, nitrogen oxides and ammonia by 2030 is currently being scrutinised in Brussels.

It is recognised by the British government that air pollution is estimated to reduce the life expectancy of everyone in the UK by an average of six months, an effect equivalent to 50,000 deaths a year.

However, it has emerged that the environment minister, Rory Stewart, advised Tory MEPs that the government does not believe that the proposed ceilings on emissions are “proportionate, deliverable and evidence based, and do not impact disproportionately on any one sector”.

In a leaked information note, Stewart insisted that they support an amendment that would give Britain “flexibility” and allow them to “adjust their inventory” if the country looked likely to breach targets because particular sectors were emitting more than had been expected.

The Liberal Democrat MEP Catherine Bearder claimed that the move fundamentally weakened the EU legislation and allowed the British government to ignore the damage done by high-emitting sectors, such as the car industry.

“It seems no lessons have been learnt from the dieselgate scandal. This shameful get-out clause could allow authorities to turn a blind eye while carmakers exceed EU pollution limits all over again,” she said.

“The UK government must enforce the rules to tackle deadly pollution instead of secretly trying to water them down.”

The revelation comes as an independent analysis by the European Environmental Bureau, a Brussels-based coalition of environmental charities, found that weaker pollution limits being pushed for by the British government would lead to about 11,000 additional deaths in the UK by 2030, and an extra 136,000 across Europe.

About 29,000 deaths in the UK are currently hastened by inhalation of minute particles of oily, unburnt soot emitted by all petrol engines, and an estimated 23,500 by the invisible but toxic gas nitrogen dioxide (NO2) discharged by diesel engines.

On Thursday, the publication of data from more than 3,000 cities compiled by the World Health Organization found that outdoor air pollution had increased by 8% globally in the past five years, with billions of people around the world now exposed to dangerous air.

Of 52 UK towns and cities included in the UN database, Port Talbot in south Wales, a hub for the UK steel industry, is the most polluted, ahead of London, Glasgow, Southampton and Leeds. The cleanest UK city in the WHO list is Inverness, followed by Bournemouth, Newcastle and Sunderland.

A spokesman for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said the amendment to the 2030 national ceilings directive was designed to allow for scientific developments that could not have been foreseen when the limits were set. Defra claimed that under the proposals, member states would be unfairly penalised if there were scientific developments that “change the evidence base upon which ceilings are set”.

“Tackling air pollution is a priority for this government and we are working with EU partners to agree ambitious and realistic emission limits for key air pollutants from 2030,” the spokesman said.

“It is important these limits are based on the best available evidence and member states are not penalised by any new and unforeseen developments in the way emissions are calculated, which could hamper our ability to agree ambitious limits that will lead to long-term improvements in air quality.”

Source: UK accused of trying to undermine EU air pollution targets | Environment | The Guardian

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