Improvements in Glasgow air pollution levels

Posted on October 29, 2015 by Respro® UK Ltd

Glasgow is revoking a city-wide air quality management plan after a major improvement in pollution levels.

The city council declared the whole of Glasgow an air quality management area in 2012 after targets were exceeded.

The authority said tests had shown 95% of areas were now meeting air quality targets but some still faced challenges posed by traffic emissions.

The improvement is being attributed to more low-emission buses, a cycle-hire scheme and a city car club.

‘Good progress’

Councillor Alistair Watson, the council’s executive member for sustainability and transport, said: “While we have made very good progress, we recognise that there is more to be done.

“We will continue to work together with our partners to reduce air pollution levels and improve the health of our citizens.”

Councillor Watson said there had been a number of initiatives over the last three years to improve air quality in the city.

These included a bus quality partnership with now sees only lower emission vehicles on particular public transport routes; the introduction of a car club, and schemes to encourage more sustainable transport such as the city’s first all-electric bus service and the cycle hire scheme.

Source: Improvements in Glasgow air pollution levels – BBC News

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European politicians back new law to reduce air pollution

Posted on October 29, 2015 by Respro® UK Ltd

The European Parliament on Wednesday backed a new draft law to cut toxins in the air and halve the number of premature deaths caused by pollution.

Environment campaigners, however, said the plans are too conservative and the proposed limits for emissions are above safe levels agreed by the World Health Organization.

Implementation is also expected to be a challenge as many of the 28 member states are already in breach of weaker existing EU air pollution law, while the Volkswagen scandal has drawn public attention to emissions of nitrogen oxides (NOx) that far exceed official levels.

The new law, which still needs endorsement by member states, sets national limits on major pollutants, including dust and NOx until 2030.

After opposition from the farming lobby, the plenary session of the European Parliament in Strasbourg voted to include ammonia and methane but exclude enteric methane emitted by ruminant animals.

European Commission data shows more than 400,000 premature deaths a year in the European Union are linked to air pollution, which causes respiratory disease and some forms of cancer. The number should halve if the draft law takes effect, the Commission says.

EU Environment Commissioner Karmenu Vella welcomed the vote as “a positive step towards an agreement on new ambitious yet realistic EU rules”.

Environment campaigners, however, said the members of the European Parliament had missed the opportunity to save more lives and reduce costs to society.

“With the Volkswagen scandal fresh in their minds, MEPs had a major opportunity to right a wrong and take action to clean up Europe’s air,” said Louise Duprez, senior policy officer for air pollution at the European Environmental Bureau.

Source: European politicians back new law to reduce air pollution | Reuters

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UK, Germany and France lobbying for weakened cap on toxic car pollution 

Posted on October 28, 2015 by Respro® UK Ltd

MEPs outraged as biggest three European countries push for watered down nitrogen oxide targets ahead of crucial EU vote

Europe’s biggest countries are lobbying for a proposed EU cap on nitrogen oxide (NOx) pollution from cars to be weakened in a vote on Wednesday, despite the VW diesel emissions scandal and revelations that 90% of cars do not currently meet pollution standards when on the road.

The UK has called for NOx emissions at twice the current legal maximum to be allowed until 2019, and for loopholes after that to permit emissions 40% above the European commission’s proposal of 80mg/km, the Guardian understands.

The British request was made in a paper submitted ahead of Wednesday’s decisive vote by a Brussels committee of national representatives.

Germany and France are pushing for similar targets, while other EU states support a drive by car manufacturers to delay implementation of the new rules for a year. Spain has held out for a start date three years later than that.

The Green MEP Bas Eickhout described the lobbying as “cynical and incomprehensible”. He said: “This is an outrage. We strongly urge the commission and EU governments to approve a test cycle that is based on real driving emissions, with no exemptions. The alternative would be a failure for Europe’s citizens.”

Earlier today, MEPs sitting in Strasbourg voted against any exemptions to the EU’s proposed NOx mandate, although their resolution is not binding.

The environmental thinktank Transport & Environment (T&E) said that the lobbying by big EU countries risked a permanent overshoot of the strict standard, due to come into force in 2017.

“Europe can’t afford to lose any more time,” said Greg Archer, of T&E. “We need to show determination, and stick to the rules agreed long ago.”

Some 23,500 people in Britain die prematurely from NOx emissions every year. The UK government is clear that the greatest contributor to illegal levels of NOx is the failure of vehicles to comply with regulations outside the testing lab.

The European commission proposal for the vote, seen by the Guardian, would allow emissions to be 60% over the current limit from 2017 when comes into force, and then falling to 20% after 2019. This would create a NOx cap of 95mg/km.

Diplomats say that the outcome of the vote, which will be decided by a qualified majority of national representatives on the technical committee for motor vehicles, is too close to call.

“Everything is possible,” one told the Guardian. “There could be some change to the commission proposal to try to find a qualified majority. It is still open.”

Car makers such as Fiat, Volvo and Seat argue that without leeway in the NOx targets, their revenues will be hit by having to pull existing vehicles from the market early. They also want to be given leeway after 2019 to reflect uncertainties in test measurements.

However, MEPs rejected their position today, passing a resolution by 493 votes to 145 calling for auto-manufacturers to be given no flexibility at all in meeting the 80mg/km NOx limit. The MEPs also appealed for emissions tests to be widened to include pollutants such as particulate matter and sulphur dioxide. An inquiry should be set up into the role played by national authorities in the VW scandal, they said.

Similar sentiments were expressed by some European countries at a meeting of environment ministers in Luxembourg yesterday.

“The car industry has a huge credibility problem which also affects our health and environment and the EU reputation,” said Carole Dieschbourg, Luxembourg’s environmental minister. “We need the new tests and better governance very soon.”

Source: UK, Germany and France lobbying for weakened cap on toxic car pollution | Environment | The Guardian

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Indonesia considers national emergency over forest fires

Posted on October 28, 2015 by Respro® UK Ltd

Indonesia is considering declaring a national emergency over fires that have been smouldering across the archipelago for weeks, sending haze drifting across much of Southeast Asia, the vice president said on Tuesday.

Indonesia is considering declaring a national emergency over fires that have been smouldering across the archipelago for weeks, sending haze drifting across much of Southeast Asia, the vice president said on Tuesday.

The government would intensify efforts to contain the fires that have caused pollution levels across the region to spike to unhealthy levels, and forced school closures and flight cancellations, Vice President Jusuf Kalla said.

“The problem is too big,” Kalla said in an interview at his office in Jakarta.

“We are now considering to,” he said, referring to a declaration of an emergency, adding that thousands of troops would be deployed to help combat the fires.

President Joko Widodo is expected to make a decision on the emergency after returning from the United States, Kalla said.

Kalla’s comments come just a day after Widodo announced he would cut short his first official trip to the United States to fly directly to the haze-affected areas.”He will be more focussed on domestic problems,” Kalla said of the president’s decision to cancel his visit to Silicon Valley, where he was expected to discuss investment deals with Apple and Google executives.

The fires, often deliberately set by plantation companies and smallholders, have been burning for weeks in the forests and carbon-rich peat lands of Sumatra and Kalimantan islands.

Recently, they have spread to places like Papua as the El Nino weather phenomenon exacerbates the dry season and hampers firefighting efforts.

An aide to the vice president, Wijayanto Samirin, said elevating the crisis to national emergency status would allow the government to speed up procurement processes for much-needed foreign firefighting equipment.

But he added there were concerns that businesses could use the government action to declare force majeure on deals in sectors ranging from palm oil to banking.

Kalla said about 40 million Indonesians in five provinces had been affected by the haze. The national disaster agency said late on Monday that haze was starting to spread south towards Java island, where over half the country’s population lives.

Indonesia has also deployed warships to evacuate infants and other vulnerable residents of haze-hit areas, a minister said last week.

The evacuations will be a last resort, said coordinating security minister Luhut Pandjaitan, if authorities are unable to provide care for those suffering from respiratory diseases.

The last time the country declared a national emergency was when the Indian Ocean tsunami killed more than 100,000 people in 2004.

Source: Indonesia considers national emergency over forest fires: VP – Channel NewsAsia

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UK toxic car pollution tests delayed by lack of equipment 

Posted on October 28, 2015 by Respro® UK Ltd

The government has little idea of how much deadly nitrogen oxide (NOx) is being emitted by individual passenger cars because it has only one £100,000 machine able to test real-world emissions, it has emerged.

Until now, government vehicle inspectors have used laboratory tests that can be manipulated by car manufacturers with “cheat devices” to give false results, MPs on the environmental audit committee were told.

But following the VW scandal, when it emerged that the German company had installed devices to lower NOx emissions in its diesel engines, the government pledged to test other cars to see how widespread the practice might be and to ascertain the environmental impact.

According to Michael Hurwitz, director of the Energy, Technology and International Directorate at the Department for Transport, it will be several months before interim results can be made public. “The limiting factor is the availability of the £100,000 kits. We have one and and are looking to get another. But will not be possible to test thousands of vehicles in a short time,” he said.

Transport minister Robert Goodwill and environment minister Rory Stewart told the committee of MPs that they were not surprised at the divergence in CO2 levels between lab tests and real-world driving, which had been known about for several years and was not secret.

But with NOx emissions it was different. “We did not think that manufacturers were cheating. We were aware of discrepancies which we attributed to manufacturers designing engines for the test. We thought that the tests were bad, not that people were cheating,” said Stewart.

The ministers said they had been impressed that heavy goods vehicles (HGV) with new Euro VI engines emitted much less NOx gas. “Possibly we were naive to think that passenger cars would perform as well,” said Goodwill.

But they insisted they wanted much better testing of passenger cars as soon as possible. “The euro VI standard is being broken by factor of five. This is unacceptable. We are working with the German government to test cars on the road. We are working to come up with better tests which will be more accurate,” said Stewart.

He played down freedom of information reports showing that the industry lobby had easy access to ministers, with more than 200 meetings recorded between them in the last parliament – but only two meetings with clean air groups.

Instead, he said that the VW scandal had changed the position of other countries which now wanted stricter testing. “In May the UK was the only government wanting real-world tests. Now almost all support us.”

Goodwill defended diesel in the face of mounting medical evidence that its fumes were dangerous to health, and figures which showed that numbers of diesel vehicles had increased from 1.4m on the road in 1994 and 10.7m now.

“In terms of taxes, diesel has not been discriminated for or against. Diesel has played a major role in reducing transport emissions. We will better positioned to [know its health impact] when we have tested vehicles across the fleet to see the discrepancies between laboratory tests and real-world emissions,” he said.

Source: UK toxic car pollution tests delayed by lack of equipment | Environment | The Guardian

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Air pollution from China expected to hit, to be at its worst Wednesday 

Posted on October 28, 2015 by Respro® UK Ltd

Taiwan will feel the impact of air pollution from China starting Tuesday due to increasing seasonal winds, which have contributed to a large portion of Taiwan’s air pollution in recent years, a local weather company said Monday.

The degree of pollution could be at its worst on Wednesday, said Peng Chi-ming (彭啟明), CEO and founder of WeatherRisk Explore Inc., the first private weather company in Taiwan.

Similar situations could be rather common in the coming few months because China often encounters high atmospheric pressure masses in winter that prevent air pollutants from dispersing, and the high concentration of pollutants is then blown by seasonal winds to Taiwan, he explained.

Among the pollutants swept to Taiwan’s shores, especially hazardous fine particulate matter smaller than 2.5 micrometers (PM2.5) could be more concentrated in southern Taiwan than in the north as little rain is anticipated there during winter, making it difficult to wash the particles away, Peng said.

Under the Environmental Protection Administration’s (EPA) index for PM2.5, no significant increases in PM2.5 concentrations are forecast for Taiwan on Tuesday but all areas except for eastern Taiwan could see a sharp rise on Wednesday.

Most areas on Taiwan proper will see maximum PM2.5 levels of between 5 and 7 — considered a medium to high range — while the Yunlin, Chiayi and Tainan areas in the southern part of Taiwan may experience PM2.5 levels as high as 9, the highest level in the high range.

Level-10 PM2.5 concentrations exceed 72 micrograms per cubic meter and are considered extremely high, but measurement above level 7 is deemed severe enough to cause tangible discomfort and health problems.

When Taiwan suffers poor air quality, the EPA usually advises elderly residents in affected areas and people with lung or heart problems, persistent coughs or discomfort around the eyes to avoid outdoor activities.People with asthma may also need to use their inhalers more often than normal while the pollution persists, it said.

Source: Air pollution from China expected to hit, to be at its worst Wednesday – The China Post

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Scents and sense ability: Diesels fumes alter half the flower smells bees need 

Posted on October 27, 2015 by Respro® UK Ltd

In polluted environments, diesel fumes may be reducing the availability of almost half the most common flower odors that bees use to find their food, research has found. The new findings suggest that toxic nitrous oxide (NOx) in diesel exhausts could be having an even greater effect on bees’ ability to smell out flowers than was previously thought. NOx is a poisonous pollutant produced by diesel engines which is harmful to humans, and has also previously been shown to confuse bees’ sense of smell, which they rely on to sniff out their food.

In polluted environments, diesel fumes may be reducing the availability of almost half the most common flower odours that bees use to find their food, research has found.

The new findings suggest that toxic nitrous oxide (NOx) in diesel exhausts could be having an even greater effect on bees’ ability to smell out flowers than was previously thought.

NOx is a poisonous pollutant produced by diesel engines which is harmful to humans, and has also previously been shown to confuse bees’ sense of smell, which they rely on to sniff out their food.

Researchers from the University of Southampton and the University of Reading found that there is now evidence to show that, of the eleven most common single compounds in floral odours, five have can be chemically altered by exposure to NOx gases from exhaust fumes.

Lead author Dr Robbie Girling, from the University of Reading’s Centre for Agri-Environmental Research (formerly of University of Southampton), said: “Bees are worth millions to the British economy alone, but we know they have been in decline worldwide.

“We don’t think that air pollution from diesel vehicles is the main reason for this decline, but our latest work suggests that it may have a worse effect on the flower odours needed by bees than we initially thought.

“People rely on bees and pollinating insects for a large proportion of our food, yet humans have paid the bees back with habitat destruction, insecticides, climate change and air pollution.

“This work highlights that pollution from dirty vehicles is not only dangerous to people’s health, but could also have an impact on our natural environment and the economy.”

Co-author Professor Guy Poppy, from Biological Sciences at the University of Southampton, said: “It is becoming clear that bees are at risk from a range of stresses from neonicitinoid insecticides through to varroa mites. Our research highlights that a further stress could be the increasing amounts of vehicle emissions affecting air quality. Whilst it is unlikely that these emissions by themselves could be affecting bee populations, combined with the other stresses, it could be the tipping point.”

This latest research is part of continuing studies into the effects of air pollution on bees. Previous work in 2013 found that bees in the lab could be confused by the effects of diesel pollution. Dr Girling and Dr Tracey Newman from the University of Southampton are currently studying how diesel fumes may have direct effects on the bees themselves.

Source: Scents and sense ability: Diesels fumes alter half the flower smells bees need — ScienceDaily

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US steams ahead with new rules to curb pollution by superyachts 

Posted on October 27, 2015 by Respro® UK Ltd

No self-respecting oligarch these days can afford to be without a superyacht. Ownership of a bling boat is as obligatory as the Ferrari in the triple garage and the private jet on standby.

However, within months any billionaire wanting to sail their marine home into US waters will have to comply with stringent new environmental regulations to curb their hulking vessel’s polluting effects. The regulations, which stipulate that certain types of vessel built after 2016 have to be fitted with bulky equipment that converts nitrogen oxides into nitrogen and water, were presented to the International Maritime Organisation, the UN body responsible for reducing shipping pollution, but were resisted by trade bodies representing superyacht manufacturers. They protested that the proposed rules threatened their industry because the engine rooms of some superyachts were too small to accommodate the new equipment, meaning they would have to lose a guest cabin to make room for the technology.

A vociferous lobbying campaign was mounted, with some boat builders suggesting that the regulations represented a “doomsday” scenario for their industry. Russia, too, weighed in against the proposals. Amid the standoff, the US has opted to impose its own unilateral obligations, which come into force from 1 January in North America and the US Caribbean, and will force all newly built boats over 24m long and with a gross tonnage of 500 tonnes or more to cut their sulphur and nitrogen oxide emissions by nearly 80%. Experts predict that the regulations, which will apply to all vessels over 24m by 2021, would soon be rolled out to other maritime areas, including the Mediterranean.

Although the new US rules apply to all types of boat built from next year, it is their impact on superyachts that will be most noticeable. Environmental campaigners have expressed anger that, even when the cheapest of cars are equipped with anti-pollutant filters, superyachts have historically had to meet few environmental obligations to reduce their sizeable diesel emissions.

Screen Shot 2015-10-27 at 07.39.42

It reportedly costs more than £250,000 just to fill the fuel tanks of the Vava II, which is almost 100 metres long and was commissioned for a former Miss UK, Kirsty Bertarelli, by her billionaire husband Ernesto. The vessel is dwarfed by Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich’s 160m Eclipse, which can accommodate 36 guests in 18 cabins. U2 singer Bono owns the more modestly sized Kingdom Come which is 60m long and can hold up to 115,000 litres of fuel.

With the super-rich competing to build ever larger vessels, curbing diesel emissions is becoming a priority for engine builders who believe that incorporating anti-pollution systems into their next-generation designs represents a new marketing opportunity.

“These yachts can go up to 200 metres and everything is getting bigger and bigger and bigger,” said Ivo Van Den Berg, business manager at Zenoro, a company that specialises in fitting power systems to superyachts. “These boats need more than shore power can provide when they are moored up. You go to Monaco and you see lot of yachts running on generators all the time. When there is no wind, the emissions are like smog in the city.” Dan Houston, editor at classicsailor.com, said the shipping world was a major polluter that had been slow to clean up its act. “Around 95% of all that we use comes in by ships,” Houston said. “I live in Hove, and you can see the diesel fumes out at sea on certain days. The ships are trucking up and down through the straits of Dover, and when you can’t see the yellow smudge out to sea, that’s when you’re in it.”

Some studies suggest that the health risks of shipping pollution are worse than those caused by traffic pollution. It is claimed that one giant container ship can emit almost the same amount of cancer and asthma-causing chemicals as 50 million cars. A German report estimates that 60,000 deaths each year are caused by shipping pollution.

But, despite these concerns, the shipping world has not yet been subject to the same level of scrutiny as other polluting industries.

Source: US steams ahead with new rules to curb pollution by superyachts | Sport | The Guardian

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