Centre wants to restrict car use as air pollution hits worrying levels

Posted on January 29, 2015 by Respro® UK Ltd

With air pollution rising to alarming levels, especially in the National capital, the Environment Ministry has urged the Supreme Court to ask the Delhi government to consider drastic steps, which includes the plying of private cars only on alternate days and a complete ban on “visible” smoke-emitting vehicles.

Other suggestions made by the ministry were making public transport free, and making the wearing of masks compulsory on highly polluted days.

These suggestions were made in an affidavit filed before the court, which is monitoring various measures being taken to reduce pollution.

“All these are crucial aspects in which the views of government of Delhi and Health Ministry may be sought”, the ministry told the court.

The report said the major source of air pollution in the Capital is dust particles and not vehicular emissions.

“Road dust emerged as the most prominent source with contribution in the range of 14.5 per cent to 29 per cent, whereas the contribution of vehicles was in the range of 8.7 per cent to 20.5 per cent,” it said.

The affidavit came in response to various suggestions mooted by the Central Pollution Control Board and the Environment pollution (Prevention and Control) Authority in a report submitted to the Apex court in November.

The panels said pollution was the fifth-biggest killer in India after high blood pressure, indoor air pollution from cooking fuels, tobacco smoking and poor nutrition.

As per the EPCA report, residents of Delhi and Ghaziabad in Uttar Pradesh have more reasons to worry as the two are among the five critically polluted cities.

Other measures suggested also include the closure of all schools and a ban on plying of private cars (only public transport to be allowed), and complete prohibition on the entry of commercial vehicles on days air pollution is very severe and toxic for human health.

via Centre wants to restrict car use as air pollution hits worrying levels | Daily Mail Online.

Posted in Air Quality, Asia, India | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

What Delhi’s air pollution says about India and climate change

Posted on January 28, 2015 by Respro® UK Ltd

The thick winter haze that settles over Delhi – a nasty mix of smog, vehicle exhaust and smoke from cooking fires – abated somewhat when President Obama arrived in India this week for talks. A bit of rain came and cleared the air. Even so, the air quality index hovered around 200 when the president arrived at the viewing stand to watch India’s Republic Day Parade on Monday. That’s approaching what’s deemed a “very unhealthy” level of the microscopic 2.5 particulate matter, which causes respiratory disease and other ailments.

The Americans were prepared. Delhi police had kept traffic to a minimum around the parade route, and the Embassy ordered 1,800 Swedish air purifiers in the weeks preceding the American delegations’ arrival. (It’s not clear whether any of those air filters actually made it into Obama’s specialbullet-proof parade enclosure, as the Indian media had reported.)

Bloomberg published a story Monday titled “Mr. President, World’s Worst Air is Taking 6 Hours Off Your Life,” which argued that Delhi’s toxic air was so harmful that it could shorten the president’s longevity.

“I think in Delhi, I think particularly at this time of the year, the air quality deteriorates,” John Podesta, counselor to the president, said to reporters in Delhi on Sunday. “But I think we weren’t concerned about bringing the president here for these meetings.”

The air in New Delhi is the worst in the world, according to a World Health Organization report last year. Environmentalists say that efforts to control it – such as a switch to clean-burning natural gas for auto rickshaws – have made little long-term impact as the city has sprawled, eight coal-fired power plants chugged out more power and more than 7 million cars clogged the roads.

The situation is hardly better in in other parts of the country. Earlier this year, a report by a Yale University research team showed that India ranked 174th of 178 countries in air quality, somewhere close to China and Pakistan.

On Sunday, the president and Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced that the two countries would work to battle pollution in India’s cities by implementing the Environmental Protection Agency’s international air quality forecasting system AIRNow. It’s part of an overall climate deal that includes a pledge for “concrete progress” on a pact to phase out a class of widely used refrigerants called hydrofluorocarbons, and support for solar energy initiatives to help India reach its goal of expanding its solar energy capacity to 100 gigawatts by 2022, an amount equal to the energy of about 100 nuclear power plants.

Administration officials acknowledged that Modi-Obama did not produce a breakthrough like the deal with China on emissions last fall. But they said that it represented significant progress from a still-developing country that has long balked at agreeing to significant curbs on its emissions.

They say the rapport that seemed to develop between Obama and Modi during this trip – Modi served Obama’s tea, and Obama kidded him about being attacked by a crocodile – may go a long way in helping the United States achieve a strong a global climate agreement in Paris with India’s help later this year.

“This signals that India sees the Paris agreement as a priority, and establishes a direct channel that could prove absolutely essential to delivering the final deal,” said Elliot Diringer, vice president of the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions, a Washington environmental group.

At a meeting with chief executives Monday, Modi called for “global action on renewable energy,” saying the world “should take a lesson from past efforts to tackle hunger and many diseases.”

However, other environmentalists expressed disappointment that the agreement between the two countries did not specifically target carbon emissions, especially as India doubles its coal production to try to  meet unrelenting power needs. India is the third largest emitter of greenhouse gases, behind the United States and China.

Raymond T. Pierrehumbert, a professor of geophysical sciences at the University of Chicago, pointed to Modi’s somewhat short response to a reporter’s question about whether he felt pressured to agree to a China-style climate deal with the United States.

“The sad thing for India is that while in rejecting a China-type deal, Modi said, ‘There is no pressure on us from any country or any person, but there is pressure when we think about the future generations and what kind of world we want to give them,’ ” Pierrehumbert said. “In attempting to provide adequate energy, if India goes with coal to the extent in current plans, Modi will be leaving future generations in India — already one of the hottest populous countries — to suffer under oppressive warming so severe that, according to some projections, mammals (and that includes people) will not be able to survive outdoors,” he said.

via What Delhi’s air pollution says about India and climate change – The Washington Post.

Posted in Air Quality, Asia, India | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Study finds deprived communities are hit hardest by air pollution

Posted on January 27, 2015 by Respro® UK Ltd

A new study has found big differences in air pollution across communities in England, with deprived and ethnic minority areas the worst affected.

Air pollution levels are linked to many forms of ill health, including higher risk of respiratory and cardiovascular diseases, especially for more vulnerable groups such as children and the elderly.

Researchers at Imperial College London and the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment in the Netherlands examined data on two types of air pollution: particulate matter (PM10) and nitrogen dioxide (NO2). They compared air pollution exposures for small areas in England and the Netherlands with population characteristics including deprivation, ethnic makeup, and proportions of children and elderly people.

The EU Ambient Air Quality Directive set limits of 40 micrograms per cubic metre (µg/m3) at monitoring stations for both PM10 and NO2 pollution. Concentration averages across all neighbourhoods in England and all but two neighbourhoods in the Netherlands were within this limit for PM10, but 11 per cent of neighbourhoods in England and nine per cent in the Netherlands exceeded the NO2 limit, accounting for an affected population of 5.4 million and 2.7 million respectively.

In England, the most deprived 20 per cent of neighbourhoods had higher air pollution levels than the least deprived neighbourhoods – 1.5 µg/m3 higher PM10 and 4.4 µg/m3 NO2 after adjusting for other factors – but this was not the case in the Netherlands. The biggest differences in air pollution levels according to socioeconomic status were in London.

The worst air pollution levels were seen in ethnically diverse neighbourhoods, defined as those where more than 20 per cent of the population are non-white. Even after allowing for the fact that some of these neighbourhoods are more deprived, in England, this difference was 3.0 µg/m3 for PM10 and 10.1 µg/m3 for NO2. In the Netherlands, differences were lower, with 1.1 µg/m3 higher PM10 and 4.5 µg/m3 NO2.

The findings are published in the journal Environmental Pollution.

The lead researcher, Dr Daniela Fecht from the School of Public Health at Imperial College London, said: “The study highlights the fact that inequalities in exposure to air pollution are mainly an urban problem, suggesting that measures to reduce environmental air pollution inequality should focus on cutting vehicle emissions in deprived urban neighbourhoods.”

The reasons for the associations between ethnic minorities and air pollution are unclear. “England and the Netherlands have a long history of immigration. It’s possible that immigrants settled in particular areas may tolerate poorer air quality for the benefits of living close to friends and family, even when their communities become less deprived,” said Dr Fecht.

The study used data from 2001, which was the most recent year for which high resolution data were available for both countries. “Pockets of deprivation tend to be quite stable, and air pollution levels haven’t fallen dramatically in this time, so it’s likely that the relationships we observed are still present,” said Dr Fecht.

The work relating to England was undertaken by staff working at the UK Small Area Health Statistics Unit (SAHSU) at Imperial College London. SAHSU is part of the MRC-PHE Centre for Environment and Health, which is funded by the Medical Research Council and Public Health England.

Ongoing work at the MRC-PHE Centre for Environment and Health will examine differences in exposure to traffic pollution by deprivation and ethnicity using more recent air pollution data in London.

via Study finds deprived communities are hit hardest by air pollution > Trends > Research | Click Green.

Posted in Air Quality, Europe, London, UK | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Why is Air Pollution in London’s Oxford Street so Bad?

Posted on January 26, 2015 by Respro® UK Ltd

London

One of the busiest roads in the City of Westminster and an ever-popular destination for shoppers and tourists alike, London’s Oxford Street has breached its legal limit for air pollution per annum in just the first four days of this year. Clean Air in London – a London action group campaigning to achieve full compliance with World Health Organisation (WHO) air quality guidelines as sustainably as possible, has reported that the levels of nitrogen oxide (NO2) surpassed the legal limit set by the EU by January 4 this year. Founder of Clean Air in London, Simon Birkett told The Independent that NO2 levels must not exceed 200 micrograms per cubic metre for more than 18 hours in an entire year in compliance with the EU and UK regulations.

Why has Oxford Street already exceeded its air pollution limit?

Since announcing the Ultra-Low Emission Zone (ULEZ) two years ago – a zone where almost all the vehicles running during working hours are either zero or low emission, Simon Birkett believes that Mayor of London, Boris Johnson has taken a number of backward steps. Simon Birkett said: “The gap between what the Mayor says and what he needs to do and actually does has never been wider. “Meanwhile, concerns about air pollution, particularly NO2 and diesel exhaust, have risen exponentially. Leading scientists say that many roads in central London will tend to have the highest NO2 concentrations in the world.”

Simon Birkett and Clean Air in London are calling for a ban on diesel in the most polluted areas of London by 2020, saying that the Mayor’s ‘love affair’ with diesel must come to an end. How have City Hall responded? City Hall claims that the Mayor is driving the most “ambitious and comprehensive package of measures in the world” in order to improve the air quality in London. A Mayor of London spokesperson said: “At the heart of his plans is the world’s first Ultra Low Emission Zone in central London from 2020, and already, progress is being made.

The oldest and most polluting vehicles have been taken off the streets, and around Oxford Street alone, the Mayor’s measures have reduced emissions by a third in two years. “Unlike many cities, London has met EU rules on particulate matter. The number of Londoners living in areas above NO2 limits has halved since 2008. Under this Mayoralty, emissions of NOx (nitrogen oxides) are down by 20 per cent and PM10 by 15 per cent. Furthermore, the Mayor has set out how, with government and EU support, London can meet targets for nitrogen dioxide (NO2) emissions by 2020, ten years ahead of government predictions.”

Step Back in Time

The effects of air pollution have been a concern for city dwellers since the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. In 1273, the use of coal was prohibited, then in 1306 a law was passed to stop the use of certain types of coal due to complaints about air quality in London.

via Why is Air Pollution in London’s Oxford Street so Bad? – Jan 24 2015 08:00 AM – Breaking News – Pollution Solutions Online.

Posted in Air Quality, Europe, London, UK | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Utah Proposes Winter Wood Burning Ban to Improve Air Quality

Posted on January 23, 2015 by Respro® UK Ltd

In an effort to improve air quality across Utah during the winter season, the Utah Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) has proposed a seasonal wood burn ban, much to the chagrin of many locals.

The ban would eliminate solid fuel burning in fireplaces and wood/coal stoves from Nov. 1 to March 15, except for homeowners whose homes are heated solely by wood.

The proposal comes after Gov. Gary Herbert requested the the Air Quality Board explore options for improving wintertime air quality along Utah’s Wasatch Front and Cache Valley.

The region suffers from winter temperature inversions, which occur when a dense layer of cold air becomes trapped under a layer of warm air.

The warm layer of air acts like a lid, trapping pollutants underneath. The Wasatch Front valleys and their surrounding mountains act like a bowl, keeping this cold air in the valleys.

The snow-covered valley floors reflect rather than absorb the heat from the sun, preventing the normal vertical mixing of warm and cold air.

“Additionally, high pressure sitting over the region during the wintertime results in light winds, that just aren’t sufficient for mixing the air,” AccuWeather.com Expert Meteorologist Brett Anderson said.

“The inversion just stays trapped.”

The longer an inversion lasts, the higher the level of trapped pollution.

According to the DEQ, the areas included in the proposed ban routinely violate the federal health-based standard for particulate matter, and solid fuel burning has been found to be a significant contributor to fine particulate pollution.

Though mandatory burn ban days already exist for this region during wintertime inversions, a full-fledged seasonal ban is opposed by many.

According to Utahns for Responsible Burning, an organization strongly opposed to a seasonal ban: “The Utah Department of Environmental Quality estimates that wood smoke is approximately 5% of this problem. Even if burning is completely banned, it won’t solve the valley’s brown cloud.”

Car exhaust, factory emissions and other pollutants contribute to the region’s poor air quality.

The organization believes that the ban punishes citizens who invested in newer, cleaner burning stoves and will be a disincentive for others to upgrade to more environmentally responsible hearth products.

Others say that the cost of using an alternative form of heat is too great.

“I know many families that will be impacted. I know families that will have to choose between food and keeping their families warm,” Utah resident Debi Rosenlund Brozovich said.

“No business or industry has ever been asked to reduce pollution by 100 percent.”

In an effort to make the ban more affordable to local residents, the DEQ has agreed to subsidize the costs for low-income families. Additionally, it exempts households whose only option for heat is wood burning.

“Homeowners whose homes are heated solely by wood and are registered with DAQ as a sole source residence would be permitted to continue heating with wood,” the DEQ said.

On Tuesday, more than 500 people showed up to Brigham City’s public hearing. The hearing was one of seven scheduled during the 40-day public comment period, which closes Feb. 9.

via Utah Proposes Winter Wood Burning Ban to Improve Air Quality.

Posted in Air Quality, USA & Canada | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Watch This Haunting Seven-Minute Film About China’s Insane Air Pollution

Posted on January 23, 2015 by Respro® UK Ltd

It’s haunting and eerily beautiful

Greenpeace East Asia today released a seven-minute film by director Jia Zhangke about China’s toxic air. The impressionistic piece, Smog Journeys, follows two families — one rural, one urban — as they live, play, and work in the country’s polluted northeast.

“When it comes to smog, no matter what jobs we do, it is still a problem we all face,” says Jia in an interview released online.

Jia is one of China’s most renowned filmmakers. His work is famously gritty, filled with tales of alienation and strife, and shot in shades of brown and gray. His last feature, A Touch of Sin (2013), was a critical hit abroad, but was considered too politically sensitive to be shown on the Chinese mainland.

via Watch This Haunting Seven-Minute Film About China’s Insane Air Pollution | TIME.

Posted in Air Quality, Asia, China | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Code orange issued for midstate air quality Friday, could cause breathing problems

Posted on January 23, 2015 by Respro® UK Ltd

Cold, snow-covered surfaces combined with a forecasted high pressure weather system could cause breathing problems for certain midstate residents on Friday.

State environmental officials have called for a code orange air quality action day for south-central Pennsylvania counties, which means unhealthy pollution levels may impact people who are sensitive to air pollution, according to the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection.

The code has been issued for Cumberland, Dauphin, Lancaster, Lebanon and York counties, among others.

In most cases, the lessened air quality targets young children, the elderly and people who suffer from respiratory problems, officials said.

To combat the issue, vulnerable midstate residents should limit outdoor activities.

The code is in line with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s air quality index, which standardizes quality by assigning colors to daily air conditions. According to the index, green signifies good air quality, yellow represents moderate air quality, orange stands for unhealthy pollution levels for sensitive people and red warns of unhealthy pollution levels for the general public.

via Code orange issued for midstate air quality Friday, could cause breathing problems | PennLive.com.

Posted in Air Quality, USA & Canada | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Obama’s About to Get a Whiff of India’s Air Pollution

Posted on January 22, 2015 by Respro® UK Ltd

The Times of India newspaper carried a cartoon this month of U.S. President Barack Obama wearing a gas mask when he attends the Republic Day parade in New Delhi on Jan. 26. Next to it was table showing air quality, or rather the lack of it.

New Delhi’s residents have long suffered from bad air — readings on the morning of Jan. 20 were “very unhealthy,” mostly because of trucks and cars running on dirty diesel. The Obama cartoon sums up the city’s pollution problem, but the plunge in crude oil prices may offer a solution.

The drop has handed oil refiners fatter profits from diesel and gasoline sales and the wherewithal to speed up plans to produce cleaner burning fuels. Refiners such as Bharat Petroleum Corp. will spend as much as 800 billion rupees ($13 billion) by the end of the decade to upgrade refineries, according to the oil ministry’s auto fuel vision and policy 2025 document.

It couldn’t come sooner. Shortened life spans of the urban population because of air pollution are costing India $18 billion annually, according to a World Bank report.

India uses the equivalent of a European numerical measure for assessing fuel emission standards. The higher the number, the lower the emissions.

Much of Europe is on a standard known as Euro-V, while 39 large Indian cities, including New Delhi, adhere to the equivalent of Euro-IV. The rest of the country is at Euro-III, or more than a decade behind Europe.

Advancing Deadline

The government has identified 24 additional cities to be brought under Euro-IV by March, before covering the entire country by August 2017. India initially planned to move to Euro-VI by 2024, said Saurabh Chandra, the top bureaucrat in the country’s oil ministry.

“We are now planning to migrate directly to Euro-VI fuels by 2020,” he said. “Indian refineries are capable of upgrading units for Euro-VI fuels with little incremental cost.”

The pollutant India is trying to get out of its air is known as PM2.5, mostly emitted by diesel engines. These are airborne particles and liquid droplets measuring less than 2.5 micrometers or one-thirtieth the width of a strand of hair.

In 2013, the World Health Organization classified PM2.5 as a Group 1 carcinogen, similar to asbestos and tobacco, saying exposure can cause lung cancer, complicate births, and increase the risk of bladder cancer. Short-term spikes can kill, triggering strokes, heart failure and asthma attacks, according to the American Lung Association.

Low Sulfur

Both Euro-VI and Euro-V diesel have very low sulfur content, which allows engines to use filters to scrub exhaust gasses of PM2.5. Euro-VI vehicle engines adhere to tighter emission norms than Euro-V ones.

India has about 17 state-owned refineries, half of which are more than 50 years old, according to oil ministry data. Most of these refineries are capable of producing only Euro-III equivalent fuels.

“We are already upgrading the units at two of our refineries,” S. Varadarajan, chairman of Bharat Petroleum, India’s second biggest state-run refiner, said last week. “Therefore, we can think about moving toward Euro-VI fuels.”

The refiners can invest in upgrades because of increased cash flow and lower debt after Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government ended state control on diesel pricing in October.

State refiners, which already sell gasoline at market rates, now have the freedom to set their own diesel prices as well.

‘Better Finances’

“We will have to produce fuels according to the government’s policy and timeline,” said K.V. Rao, finance director at Hindustan Petroleum. “The state refiners are in better financial position now than they were at the beginning of last year.”

Vehicle makers will also need to play a part in upgrading engines to run on the fuels.

The oil and automobile industries have to “invest a lot when the fuel standard is upgraded and some of that additional cost will probably have to be passed on to consumers,” Sugato Sen, the New Delhi-based deputy director-general of the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers, said in a phone interview.

Automobile companies in India currently produce both Euro-III and Euro-IV compliant vehicles for sale within the country and Euro-V for exports, Sen said.

“It will be a bigger challenge for the automotive industry to upgrade vehicles,” said Saumitra Chaudhuri, head of the panel that wrote the auto fuel vision and policy 2025 document.

via Obama’s About to Get a Whiff of India’s Air Pollution – Businessweek.

Posted in Air Quality, Asia, India | Tagged , , | Leave a comment