Air pollution: Study links black carbon with premature deaths

Posted on July 1, 2021 by Respro® UK Ltd

Black carbon has a significant adverse effect on human health and can lead to premature death, according to a new study, which could help improve the estimation of the future air pollution mortality burden.

The Indo-Gangetic plain is exposed to black carbon with serious implications on regional climate and human health, but the health effects in terms of mortality due to black carbon aerosol exposure have never been evaluated in India, the study explains.

Scientist R K Mall led a team of other scientists, including Nidhi Singh, Alaa Mhawish, Tirthankar Banerjee, Santu Ghosh, R S Singh from the Department of Science & Technology-Mahamana Centre of Excellence in Climate Change Research (MCECCR) at Banaras Hindu University, which conducted the research.

The team explored individual as well as the cumulative impact of black carbon aerosol, fine (PM 2.5), and coarse (PM 10) particulates, and trace gases SO2 (sulphur dioxide), NO2 (nitrogen dioxide), O3 (trioxygen) on premature mortality in Varanasi. Their research and findings were published recently in the journal Atmospheric Environment.

“The study could also help estimate the future burden of mortality associated with air pollutants considering the present association and incorporating a growing population rate. This will help government and policy-makers for better planning to mitigate the adversity associated with changing climate-air pollution-health nexus,” the department of science and technology said in a statement.

A typical urban pollution hotspot in the central Indo-Gangetic plain experiences a very high aerosol loading and trace gas concentrations throughout the year due to prevalence of a subsidence zone. Also, such centres have observed decadal increasing trends both in aerosol optical depth and black carbon aerosols.

The scientists from MCECCR, supported by the climate change programme of the department of science and technology, utilised daily all-cause mortality and ambient air quality from 2009 to 2016 to clearly establish a significant impact of black carbon aerosols, NO2 and, PM2.5 exposure on mortality, a statement from the DST said.

The inclusion of co-pollutants (NO2 and PM 2.5) in the multi-pollutant model increased the individual mortality risks for black carbon aerosols, the statement added.

The statement explained that the effect of pollutants was more prominent for males in the age group of 5-44, and in the winters. The scientists found that the adverse effect of air pollutants was not limited to the day of exposure but can extend as high as up to five days (something known as the lag effect).

The researchers further showed that mortality rises linearly with an increase in air pollutant level and shows an adverse impact at higher levels.

The inclusion of black carbon as a potential health hazard inspires and provides a background for more epidemiological studies to provide evidence of health effects of air pollutants from different parts of India, the DST added.

via https://lifestyle.livemint.com/smart-living/environment/air-pollution-study-links-black-carbon-with-premature-deaths-111625065713685.html

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Vehicles cause one-third of Mumbai’s air pollution: Study

Posted on June 30, 2021 by Respro® UK Ltd

Automobiles have become the biggest contributor to Mumbai’s deteriorating air quality, a study by System of Air Quality Weather Forecasting and Research has revealed. The share of PM2.5 vehicular emission was 30.5 per cent in 2019-20, up from 16 per cent in 2016-17, said SAFAR. The findings underscore the need for scrapping of old vehicles, promoting those powered by electricity and boosting mass transit systems.

Maharashtra’s Economy Survey report for 2020-21 said Mumbai accounted for 10.3 per cent of the state’s vehicle registrations. The city’s vehicle density is now over 2,000 vehicles per km, an indicator of more traffic congestion and worsening air pollution in future. Mumbai has about 40 lakh vehicles with 11.6 lakh private cars and 24 lakh two-wheelers. 

Air has suspended particulate matter of different sizes and PM 2.5 has a diameter not more than 2.5 micrometers (fine particles). It is small enough to invade the lungs.

The SAFAR study says industries and power sector contribute about 18 per cent towards PM2.5 emission, followed by 15 per cent from residential cooking in households and slums.

Dr Gufran Beig, senior scientist & founder project director at SAFAR, said, “Transport sector has shown a drastic increase over five years as a sector contributing to PM2.5 pollution in Mumbai. This is a combination of both an increase in the number of vehicles in Mumbai and more stagnation at traffic junctions leading to congestion.”

Compared to Delhi, Dr Beig said, the adoption of CNG is very less in Mumbai. “Majority of the vehicles continue to be petrol and diesel,” he said.

Anumita Roy Chowdhury, executive director-research and advocacy, Central for Science and Environment, bemoaned: “The city has not been able to leverage its overall public transport system both in terms of metro and suburban rail etc. to reduce the dependence on private vehicles.” 

Sudhir Srivastava, former MPCB chairman, said a parallel large-scale source assessment exercise is being done by the National Environmental Engineering Research Institute. “Once it is published, we will compare the analysis to improve the city’s air quality.”

Dr Sanjeev Mehta, a pulmonologist, said, “Vehicles are literally blowing poison into our lungs. A few international studies have shown that lung functional analysis of people living within 1 km of main roads had much lower lung capacity than those living near arterial roads. Conducting a similar study in major cities like Mumbai will throw frightening results.”

Mumbai: Fire services fee passed on to owners; BJP smells a scam
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Research connects air pollution to worst Taiwanese drought in nearly 60 years

Posted on June 25, 2021 by Respro® UK Ltd

A new study co-published by researchers at the University at Albany and National Central University (NCU) has linked air pollution to the worst drought that Taiwan has experienced in more than a half-century.

The study, published in the Journal of Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, analyzed 13 years’ worth of satellite and surface data to better understand how aerosols (air pollution) impact cloud lifecycle and precipitation during the autumn months over northern Taiwan. Their findings suggest that increasing levels of air pollution are indirectly reducing the amount of rainfall.

Data was analyzed from 2005 to 2017 on airborne particulate matter smaller than 2.5 micrometers. As aerosol concentrations rose, cloud droplets became smaller and more numerous, with drizzles occurring less frequently. “Polluted days,” defined as being in the 80th percentile or higher of the region’s average daily aerosol concentrations, saw about 6.8 millimeters less of average rainfall than “clean days” in the fixed cloud water content.

Taiwan is usually among the wettest places in the world, but with diminishing plum rain and typhoon seasons, it is facing its worst drought in 56 years. Many reservoirs are now at less than 20 percent capacity, some as low as 10 percent. These conditions are not only detrimental to the people living there, but also the global electronics sector, which relies heavily on the island for semiconductor manufacturing.

“These drought conditions are impacting people’s daily lives and industrial production,” said Qilong Min, a research associate at UAlbany’s Atmospheric Sciences Research Center (ASRC) and study co-author. “Scientists are trying to understand the linkage of the drought and other environmental factors. We’re looking closely at one of those environmental factors—aerosols in the atmosphere. Our analysis is showing a clear linkage that when air pollution is higher, it results in a decrease in the characteristics of rain droplets and frequency of drizzle events.”

The U.S.-Taiwan partnership

This research is part of the ongoing U.S.-Taiwan Partnership for International Research and Education (PIRE) project.

Announced by U.S. Senators Charles E. Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand, the 5-year, $4.5 million project’s goal is to advance research in early warning detection and disaster response of major storms. The program is led by UAlbany in partnership with several universities and disaster and weather forecast agencies in both the United States and Taiwan, including NCU.

Before the pandemic, dozens of students from participating institutions were offered travel and living expenses to study abroad and complete summer-long research internships under the mentorship of PIRE faculty at partnering institutions.

Lead study author Ying-Chieh Chen, a recent graduate of NCU’s Department of Atmospheric Sciences, was among the first cohort of the PIRE program in the summer of 2017. She studied at UAlbany for two months under the mentorship of Min, focusing on the aerosol impacts on cloud lifecycle and precipitation distribution in northern Taiwan through radiative and microphysical effects.

Chen wrote her thesis on the topic and has since earned her master’s degree. Following her summer exchange, she telecommunicated with Min during a three-year research process before publishing findings in late March.

“Through the PIRE project, I was grateful for the opportunity to work closely with a number of professional research professionals to better explore the relationship between aerosol-cloud precipitation interactions,” Chen said. “Our findings offer important insight into the environmental factors of one of the worst recorded droughts in Taiwan’s history.”

The study included more than a half dozen researchers from ASRC and NCU. They plan to continue exploring this topic with new cohorts of PIRE exchange students once the program resumes.

Research connects air pollution to worst Taiwanese drought in nearly 60 years
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Calgary researchers reaching for the sky with air quality study

Posted on June 24, 2021 by Respro® UK Ltd
This infographic shows the spread of air pollution across the city in winter and summer. INFOGRAPHIC/ Provided by : Isabelle Couloigner, Fr.Ing, PhD, University of Calgary Geography Department

The air is thick with fumes and smoke, and University of Calgary researchers are directing their skills to measuring and detecting it.

In Calgary, there are three permanent air quality monitoring stations part of the air quality regulatory system. However, that number is far too low to gain an accurate reading on how specific areas might be affected.

University of Calgary professor Stefania Bertazzon set out to rectify that knowledge gap. The Professor of Geography and her colleague Rizwan Shahid, an adjunct assistant professor, teamed up to map which parts of the city were most likely to be affected by air pollutants. Professor Bertazzon said that there was a distinct lack of monitoring in the city before the study.

“I was surprised with how little we know about our air quality in Calgary. We like spending time outdoors and pedestrians and bike paths. But we rarely understand that those paths run along the busiest roads,” Dr. Bertazzon said.

“When people saw our air quality maps, and we educated them about air pollution, many people realized they were travelling along the most polluted areas.”

Spreading the word about air quality

Dr. Bertazzon spearheaded clean air campaigns to widen people’s knowledge of the issue and how it might affect them. Alongside this campaign, Dr. Bertazzon approached a number of homeowners across the city, asking for permission to place air monitoring systems in their backyards for the study.

Despite people’s lack of knowledge, Dr. Bertazzon said she was thrilled to see the interest and concern people still had for the issue.

“So many people care about this issue. When we deployed our monitors, we asked people if they would be willing to host a monitor in their yards, and we had an overwhelming response, so many people want to know what their air is like,” said Dr. Bertazzon.

“It was a positive surprise. We hope people will be able to empower themselves by knowing about and protecting themselves from air pollution.”

Mapping air pollution

The initial number of stations used in the study across Calgary was 50, which then rose to 100 in the next phase of research.

Using all of that data, the research team put together “heat maps” showing how the city is affected by air pollutants.

The maps paint a clear and informative picture showing which parts of the city are worse off. This was achieved by Dr. Shahid, who used his background in both computer sciences and geographic information systems.

Dr. Shahid stressed that these maps may look alarming. But the air quality in Calgary is actually quite good. One area in Calgary having worse air quality than others is all relative.

“We know that the representation of the analysis and the portrayal of data needed to be done safely. It couldn’t be too broad but not too detailed either to single out specific places. It was the right amount of information that could benefit everyone,” Dr. Shahid said.

“Initially, when we published our paper on the study, we didn’t have a map. Once it was picked up by a wider community, it clicked that I should have a story map measuring the air quality index across the city.”

The maps were created using geospatial lenses combined with geographical information sciences (GIS). This geospatial measuring gives an accurate estimate of how air pollutants like nitrogen dioxide are distributed through the city.

Mapping clearly shows that any area next to a major roadway is at increased risk of exposure. Major transportation corridors like Memorial Drive, Deerfoot Trail, or Crowchild Trail show distinctive red markings that give away their effect. The downtown core is arguably the most affected.

Solutions to improve air quality

Dr. Bertazzon said that since most of Calgary’s air pollutant problems seem to stem from roadways, mitigating the problem would be tied to infrastructure changes and alternative methods of transportation.

“Over five years, the spatial patterns didn’t change much with the same areas affected. The only thing we can do is to try and decrease pollution in affected areas, by using vehicles less and being smarter about driving habits,” Dr. Bertazzon said.

“Although, I think encouraging people to use options like the Calgary ring road will limit emissions within the city.”

Dr. Bertazzon said that while the maps may seem worrying and action should be taken to minimize the effect of air pollution, Calgary still has high air quality compared to other cities.

The COVID-19 pandemic stalled Dr. Bertazzon and her colleagues from continuing their research in 2020 and 2021. Once field tests are permitted again, the crew will begin examining areas of concern like schools to see how those places may be at risk.

Although, it is hard to determine exactly how people are affected by these findings as it usually comes down to an individual basis.

Calgary researchers reaching for the sky with air quality study – LiveWire Calgary
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Satellite data explains the extent of lockdown effect on nitrogen oxides

Posted on June 22, 2021 by Respro® UK Ltd

COVID-19 has changed the world in unimaginable ways. Some have even been positive, with new vaccines developed in record time. Even the extraordinary lockdowns, which have had severe effects on movement and commerce, have had beneficial effects on the environment and therefore, ironically, on health.

Studies from all around the world, including China, Europe and India, have found major drops in the level of air pollution. However, to fully understand the impact of anthropogenic causes, it is important to separate them from natural events in the atmosphere like wind flow.

To demonstrate this point, a new study by researchers at the Research Institute for Humanity and Nature, Japan, uses satellite data and mathematical modeling to explain just how great the lockdown effect on nitrogen oxides has been in Delhi, India, one of the world’s most polluted cities, and its surrounding area.

This study was carried out under the activity named “Mission DELHIS (Detection of Emission Change of air pollutants: Human Impact Studies)” as a part of RIHN project, Aakash (meaning “Sky” in Hindi, originated from sanskrit).

“Nitrogen oxides are good chemical tracers for testing model hypothesis, because besides their health effects, they have a short lifetime. Therefore, it is unlikely wind will bring nitrogen oxides from far away.” Sachiko Hayashida, Study Lead and Professor

Nitrogen oxides naturally change due to dynamic and photochemical conditions in the atmosphere, and are emitted from the Earth’s surface by both natural and anthropogenic activities. Therefore, Hayashida argues, looking simply at their concentration levels in the atmosphere provides only a crude impression of man-made contributions.

“COVID-19 pandemic has given us an opportunity of social experiment, when we can discriminate the anthropogenic effects on nitrogen oxides from the natural ones caused by atmospheric conditions and natural emissions, because only anthropogenic emissions decreased due to the lockdown. These confounders affect policy to control air quality” she says.

Strict lockdown was enforced in Delhi for two months in 2020, from the end of March to the end of May. This period coincides with the transition in atmospheric conditions, such as actinic flux, from low in spring to high in early summer, and also from stagnant winds to high ventilation across the entire northern India region.

The researchers analyzed seasonal and inter-annual changes using multi-year satellite data to predict what the levels would be had there been no lockdown. They estimated top-down emissions using a steady-state continuity equation. The study’s findings clearly show that the natural conditions could not explain the dramatic drop in 2020 nitrogen oxide levels. Not even close.

“Our calculations suggested that 72% of nitrogen oxides emissions in urban centres are the resulted solely from traffic and factories,” said Hayashida.

Interestingly, the levels recovered after the lockdown more quickly in rural levels than they did in urban ones, an effect attributed to agricultural activities, such as crop-residue burning, which resumed almost immediately. Unlike factories, the agricultural activities continued, albeit at a lesser pace, during the lockdown, which was less stringent on agriculture.

Hayashida says that her team’s approach should have an impact on how we study harmful chemical species emitted to the atmosphere.

“Our findings show the importance of analyzing top-down emissions and not just atmospheric concentrations. We expect our approach to guide effective policy on air pollution,” she said.

Satellite data explains the extent of lockdown effect on nitrogen oxides
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Medical leaders urge Boris Johnson to bring air pollution below WHO limit

Posted on June 21, 2021 by Respro® UK Ltd

Alliance of doctors and nurses calls for environment bill to include reduction in small particle pollution limits

Medical leaders are urging Boris Johnson to cut legal levels of air pollution in the UK to below World Health Organization limits in response to the death of the schoolgirl Ella Kissi-Debrah from toxic air.

Members of the UK Health Alliance on Climate Change are calling for the reduction in limits of PM2.5 to be included in the environment bill, which returns to parliament this week.

A letter to the prime minister from leaders of the British Medical Association, more than 20 nursing colleges, the Lancet and the British Medical Journal (BMJ) says: “Today, before the environment bill returns to the House of Lords, we urge your government to use this bill to make a legally binding commitment to reducing fine particulate pollution (PM2.5) in the UK to below the maximum level recommended by the WHO by 2030.

“Air pollution is among the greatest environmental determinants of health, and contributes to many serious and chronic health conditions affecting every organ in the body. Despite this, the UK’s legal limits for PM2.5 pollution – some of the most damaging of all pollutants – are currently more than double the WHO recommended limit.”

Last week, in response to recommendations by the coroner in the inquest of nine-year-old Ella to cut the limit to WHO levels, the government failed to commit to such reductions. Instead, Johnson’s government promised to hold a public consultation next January, with a view to setting new air pollution targets in October 2022.

It made no commitment to setting the legal limit at below the WHO level for PM2.5 of an annual mean 10 μg/m3, but said it would use the WHO guidelines to inform its ambitions.

In a landmark ruling, the coroner Philip Barlow found that air pollution was a cause of Ella’s death in 2013. Barlow said during her life Ella was exposed to nitrogen dioxide and particulate matter (PM) pollution in excess of WHO guidelines, the principal source of which were traffic emissions.

Failure to reduce pollution levels to legal limits possibly contributed to her death, as did the failure to provide her mother with information about the potential for air pollution to exacerbate asthma, he found.

In their letter to Johnson, the medical leaders point out that the Royal College of Physicians estimated about 40,000 deaths a year may be attributed to air pollution. NHS and Public Health England figures over five years before the Covid-19 pandemic showed 5% of all deaths were attributable to PM2.5.

“Thousands more are living with health conditions caused or exacerbated by dirty air. Such lung conditions leave people more vulnerable to viruses such as Covid-19, so protecting the lung health of the public is a key element of the fight against the virus,” the letter says.

It goes on to challenge Johnson to show leadership in the year the UK hosts Cop26, the 26th UN climate change conference, in Glasgow.

“The sources of fine particulate pollution – road transport, domestic and industrial burning – are also the sources of a significant proportion of the UK’s greenhouse gas emissions. We can therefore tackle the challenges of climate change and air pollution simultaneously … We must do so, if we are to meet your government’s commitment to reaching net-zero carbon emissions by 2050,” the letter says.

“As your government aims to build back better, the economic, health, and environmental cases for strong legal protection from fine particulate air pollution are clear. This should be in line with the standards set by the WHO.”

The environment bill returns to parliament this week when the House of Lords considers the bill at committee stage. The medical leaders urged members of the Lords to back an amendment by Maggie Jones to introduce WHO-compliant targets for PM2.5 pollution.

The letter’s signatories include Dr Richard Smith, chair of the UK Health Alliance on Climate Change; Dr Edward Morris, president of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists; Prof Jon Bennett, chair of the British Thoracic Society board; Dr Andrew Goddard, president of the Royal College of Physicians; Dr Adrian James, president of the Royal College of Psychiatrists; Prof Maggie Rae, president of the Faculty of Public Health; and Dr Camilla Kingdon, president of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health.

Medical leaders urge Boris Johnson to bring air pollution below WHO limit | Air pollution | The Guardian
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Which cities in the European Union are worst for air pollution?

Posted on June 18, 2021 by Respro® UK Ltd

Cities in Poland and Italy are among Europe’s worst for air quality, while those in Scandinavia and the Baltics are ranked the best, new data has revealed.

The European Environment Agency (EEA) released its latest ranking on city air quality on Thursday, reiterating that in some cities air pollution continues to pose a risk to health.

It estimated late last year that 417,000 citizens from 41 European countries prematurely lost their lives in 2018 because of air pollution — 60,000 fewer than a decade earlier, but still “far too high” for the agency.

A European Directive set the maximum tolerated concentration of fine particulate matter in the air as 25 µg/m3 for the year, while the World Health Organisation (WHO) has a much stricter guideline of 10 µg/m3.

Fine particulate matter is the air pollutant with the highest impact on health in terms of disease and premature death.

The European city with the best air quality over the previous two years was found to be Umea in Sweden, where the concentration of Fine particulate matter averages 3.7 µg/m3. It is followed by Tampere in Finland (3.8 µg/m3) and Funchal, Portugal (3.8 µg/m3).

Also featured in the top 10: Sweden’s Uppsala and Stockholm; Estonia’s Tallin and Narva and Tatu; Noway’s Bergen and Trondheim and the Spanish city of Salamanca.

The city with the worst air quality was meanwhile found to be Nowy Sacz in Poland, with an average concentration of fine particulate matter reaching 27.3 µg/m3. Cremona in Italy (25.9 µg/m3) and Croatia’s Slavonski Brod (25.7 µg/m3) complete the bottom trio.

Four other Polish cities (Zgierz, Piotrkow Trybunalsi, Zory and Krakow), as well as an additional three Italian cities (Vicenza, Brescia and Pavia) and the Bulgarian town of Veliko, occupy the rest of the worst 10 cities.

To compile the list the EEA used the daily concentration of fine particulate matter of 300 cities to calculate an annual mean concentration. Only cities which have communicated a minimum of 75% of temporal data coverage have been included.

Brussels has been taking member states to court over air pollution. In November, the European Court of Justice ruled that Italy has “systematically and persistently” breached the EU directive setting daily and annual limits on the amount of harmful fine particles.

The European Commission has also referred Poland and France to the ECJ.

via https://www.euronews.com/2021/06/17/cities-in-poland-and-italy-rank-bottom-in-europe-for-air-quality

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Quarter of UK pupils attend schools where air pollution is over WHO limit

Posted on June 17, 2021 by Respro® UK Ltd

Estimated 3.4m children learn in unhealthy environment, says charity behind research

Millions of British children attend schools where air pollution is worse than the World Health Organization limit, campaigners have said.

An analysis found that more than a quarter of schools, from nurseries to sixth-form colleges, were in locations with high levels of small particle pollution. This means an estimated 3.4 million children are learning in an unhealthy environment, said Global Action Plan (Gap), the charity behind the research that was released on Clean Air Day on Thursday.

Tiny pollution particles, called PM2.5, are particularly dangerous as they not only harm the lungs but can pass into the bloodstream and affect many other parts of the body. Developing bodies are especially vulnerable, and dirty air has already been linked to increased asthma, obesity and mental disorders in children.

“Schools should be safe places of learning, not places where students are at risk of health hazards,” said Dr Maria Neira, director at the World Health Organization. “These figures are unequivocally too high and harming children’s health. There is no safe level of air pollution, and if we care about our children and their future, air pollution limits should reflect WHO guidelines.”

A second report by experts at the University of Manchester also highlighted the danger to children’s health from air pollution, which it said has recently been linked to increasing cognitive impairments, including ADHD.

Prof Martie Van Tongeren said urgent action was needed to cut pollution to prevent cognitive decline and neurodegenerative diseases in young people: “Children face a considerably higher risk of neurological impacts from air pollutants. These can transfer to the bloodstream in the lungs and travel to other parts of the body including the brain, or may travel directly to the brain through the olfactory nerve in the nose.”

The highest number of polluted schools identified in the analysis by Gap are in the populous London and south-east regions. But there are polluted schools across the country, with nearly 300 in Manchester postcodes M1 to M9 and in Portsmouth postcodes PO1 to PO9. There are also more than 200 such schools in the first nine Leicester and Ipswich postcodes.

The analysis combined 2019 data from the air quality company EarthSense with the locations of schools in England, Scotland and Wales. Air pollution fell during Covid-19 lockdowns but is expected to largely return to previous levels.

The research found almost 8,000 schools are in locations above the WHO’s annual average limit for PM2.5 of 10 μg/m3 – the UK legal limit is 25 μg/m3. In April, the coroner who found that air pollution was a cause of the death of 9-year-old Ella Adoo-Kissi-Debrah in 2013 said the UK limit should be lowered to the WHO level. The WHO limit was set in 2005 but may be lowered further in new guidelines expected in September, New Scientist reported on Wednesday.

PM2.5 particles are produced by traffic, wood-burning stoves and farm emissions. In its 2019 Clean Air Strategy, the government said: “We will reduce PM2.5 concentrations across the UK, so that the number of people living in locations above the WHO guideline level is reduced by 50% by 2025.”

Gap said schools, parents and children could lobby local and national politicians to take action, as well as walking or cycling to school wherever possible.

Sarah Hannafin, at the National Association for Head Teachers, said: “The impact of the pandemic on children has been huge; we need to do everything we can to make sure we safeguard their futures. One vital way of doing that is to ensure they return to a safe, clean and healthy environment where they can learn, play and thrive.”

A spokesperson for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said: “Emissions of fine particulate matter have fallen by 11% [since 2010]. However, we know there is more to do. We are continuing to deliver a £3.8bn plan to clean up transport and tackle NO2 pollution.” A consultation on new targets for PM2.5 and other pollutants will launch early next year, he said, with the aim of setting new targets in legislation by October 2022.

In September, research commissioned by Asthma UK and the British Lung Foundation said that many schools were in areas with dangerously high levels of particle pollution.

The Guardian revealed in 2017 that thousands of schools in England and Wales were in locations with illegal levels of nitrogen dioxide, a pollutant produced by diesel vehicles. NO2 levels have been illegally high in most urban areas since 2010 and the government has lost three times in court over the adequacy of its plans to reduce pollution levels.

Quarter of UK pupils attend schools where air pollution is over WHO limit | Air pollution | The Guardian
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