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Proposals made on Tuesday are ‘not substantial enough to change the big picture’<\/p>\n
Nine European countries including the UK could face legal action if they fail to make progress on reducing\u00a0air pollution, the EU\u2019s top environment official has warned.<\/p>\n
The intervention came as\u00a0legal air pollution limits for the whole year were reached\u00a0within a month in London.<\/p>\n
Brixton Road, Lambeth, has seen levels of pollutant nitrogen dioxide exceed average hourly limits 18 times so far this year, the maximum allowed under European Union air quality rules.<\/p>\n
Inaction by national governments over the issue prompted the European Commission’s environment commissioner, Karmenu Vella,\u00a0to warn of legal action after talks with ministers from nine\u00a0EU\u00a0countries including Britain, France, Germany, Spain and Italy –\u00a0all of which regularly flout the bloc\u2019s air quality standards.<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery year, an astonishing number of citizens\u2019 lives are cut short because of air pollution,\u201d Mr Vella said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have known this for decades, and the air quality limit values have been in place for almost as long.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd yet, still today, in 2018, 400 000 people are still dying prematurely every year because of a massive, widespread failure to address the problem.\u201d<\/p>\n
He continued: \u201cThe deadlines for meeting the legal obligations have long elapsed\u2026 we can delay no more.\u201d<\/p>\n
Poor air quality caused by vehicle\u00a0emissions, industry, power plants and agriculture is known to cause or exacerbate asthma and other respiratory problems.<\/p>\n
Air pollution also has significant economic impacts, increasing healthcare costs, reducing employees\u2019 productivity and damaging crops, soil, forests and rivers, according to the European Environment Agency\u2019s\u00a0latest annual report.<\/p>\n
It has taken the London\u00a0longer to reach the air pollution limit this year than last year when legal levels were breached less than a week into the new year.<\/p>\n
But while campaigners welcomed action by London Mayor Sadiq Khan to tackle pollution, they warned the relative delay in reaching the limit this year could be down to weather conditions dispersing the dirty air.<\/p>\n
Environmental groups called for the Government to take urgent steps, including creating and funding clean air zones in pollution hotspots across the UK where 85% of areas still break air quality rules which should have been achieved in 2010.<\/p>\n
Government estimates suggest compliance for levels of nitrogen dioxide, much of which comes from road transport, particularly diesel, will not be met until 2026.<\/p>\n
The\u00a0most recent data\u00a0shows that around 7 per cent of the urban population within the EU was exposed to fine particulate levels higher than the EU-stipulated limit in 2015.<\/p>\n
If the stricter World Health Organisation limits are applied, that rises sharply to 82 per cent.<\/p>\n
The countries represented at Tuesday\u2019s summit have been given ten days to submit new proposals for meeting EU air quality standards regarding particle levels.<\/p>\n
In Mr Vella\u2019s opinion, the proposals offered by the nine offending countries were \u201cnot substantial enough to change the big picture\u201d.<\/p>\n
He insisted that the only way to avoid court action was to take \u201call possible measures without delay\u201d.<\/p>\n
Reacting to the outcome of the summit, ClientEarth lawyer Ugo Taddei said: \u201cCommissioner Vella was evidently unimpressed.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe European Commission should now follow this blatant inaction through to its legal consequences and trigger court actions without further delay.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe people of Europe have waited long enough to breathe clean air.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Proposals made on Tuesday are ‘not substantial enough to change the big picture’ Nine European countries including the UK could face legal action if they fail to make progress on reducing\u00a0air pollution,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[119,131,203,222,233,246,247,282],"class_list":["post-743","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-eu","tag-france","tag-oil-and-gas","tag-pollution","tag-qatar","tag-roudi","tag-roudi-baroudi","tag-uk"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/emimer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/743","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/emimer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/emimer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emimer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emimer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=743"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/emimer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/743\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/emimer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=743"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emimer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=743"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emimer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=743"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}