WHO Report Shows Stronger Air Quality Standards Essential To Protect Health

Through their Red Tape Challenge, this Tory-led coalition government is attacking not only health and safety protection in the workplace, but now even the safety of the air we breathe!

Air pollution causes 29,000 early deaths a year in the UK – more than obesity and alcohol combined. Air pollution causes heart attacks, strokes, respiratory disease and children living near busy roads have been shown to grow up with underdeveloped lungs.

Defra’s Red Tape Challenge Environment Theme Implementation Plan includes ‘Working in partnership with other Member States (MSs), use the EC review of air quality legislation to seek amendments to the Air Quality Directive which reduce the infraction risk faced by most MSs, especially in relation to nitrogen dioxide provisions’.

The plan also refers to all aspects of the environment and includes such things as repealing current legislation covering  Air Quality, Biodiversity, Carbon Reduction, Chemicals (including Contaminated Land), Asbestos in products (allowing non-removal before re-sale), Noise and Nuisance and Waste.

In the document it promises that: “We will continue to engage extensively with stakeholders to ensure we have the strongest possible basis for resulting recommendations.”

By this of course it means big business and industry, and not the REAL stakeholders – you and I and every person in the UK and on the planet who relies on clean air to live healthily!

This can clearly be seen by the conclusion to the plan which states:

“Key proposals have been taking forward quickly whilst the broad package has been assessed and prioritised according to their benefits to business.”

However, in this European Year Of Air, an alarming World Health Organisation (WHO) report released last month, shows that air pollution causes death, serious illness and hospital admissions even at levels well below current EU limits!

The “Review of evidence on health aspects of air pollution – REVIHAAP” was commissioned by the WHO to inform the EU’s 2013 Year of Air policy review.

The report proves current EU air quality laws must be significantly tightened if they are to adequately protect health. This is bad news for the UK Government, which is already failing to meet the existing limits, and is currently lobbying to weaken air quality laws even further.

The report not only strengthens evidence of the known health impacts of pollutants (mainly from diesel vehicles) but also reveals new links with neurodevelopment, cognitive function and diabetes.

On the day of the report’s publication, Alan Andrews, ClientEarth lawyer, said:

“Today’s report shows the UK is on the wrong side of the law and on the wrong side of the science. The Supreme Court has already ruled that the Government is failing in its legal duty to meet EU air quality standards, and now the WHO is telling us that even those standards need to be much stricter to protect our health. What more will it take?”

“All the evidence is telling us we need urgent action to tackle this public health crisis, yet the Government is going in the opposite direction by lobbying the EU to weaken laws which uphold our right to clean air.”

“The Government needs to act at home to tackle carcinogenic diesel fumes, by far the biggest source of pollution, and work with the EU to make sure it delivers laws which adequately protect our health.”

Once again, Government dictate that nothing gets in the way of big business and profit, overrides all other aspects including scientific fact!

The UK Government is failing to meet even current legal limits across the UK, with 16 cities and regions (including London, Manchester, Birmingham and Glasgow) set to continue to suffer from illegal levels of nitrogen dioxide, a toxic gas - until as late as 2020 or 2025.

A legal case brought by ClientEarth has already resulted in a formal declaration from the UK Supreme Court and a referral to the European Court of Justice. This could ultimately lead to the government being forced to come up with ambitious new plans, and has also opened up the possibility of enforcement action by the European Commission.

But there is a broader political element to this says web editor, Chris Ingram:

“Air pollution and the premature deaths and chronic illness it causes is just one reason in itself why leaving the European Union would place UK citizens at a major disadvantage, and explains even further why the Tory Party and UKIP wish to leave the EU and abolish all laws and regulations which do not fit in with their mind set that nothing, even human life, can be allowed to get in the way of big business and huge profits to be enjoyed by less than 1% of people on the planet!”

The EU has declared 2013 the “Year of Air” and is overhauling its air pollution laws. You can find more information here

Source: Client Earth / European Commission / unionsafety

A 36 page summary report of the full 309 page WHO report is available from the E-Library Database, and can be downloaded without searching here

The full WHO report can be downloaded from the E-Library Database by using the search words 'air pollution'.

See Also: Supreme Court Rules UK Government Is Breaking Air Pollution Laws

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