UK forced to improve its cities’ poor air

Britain appears to have been dodging an EU directive to provide clean air in its cities.

Last week, the European Court of Justice called the UK to a meeting about air quality standards. The UK had undertaken to achieve the clean-up of air by 2010.

But of late ministers have been insisting that the target would not be reached before 2025 in Manchester, Newcastle, Sheffield, Nottingham, Southampton and Bristol, while London, Birmingham and Leeds would only be achieved in the 2030s.

The EU regulation was based on health concerns. In the UK, almost 40,000 people die every year from inhaling dangerous airborne particulates, according to the European Environment Agency.

These particulates affect everyone who lives in Britain’s cities.

Another major pollutant is nitrogen dioxide which worsens the asthma epidemic that hits one in seven of the nation’s children.

Living near main urban roads, a major study of 25 cities concluded, could account for 30% of new cases in the young. And London is the worst out of all European capitals.

A legal case over nitrogen dioxide targets went all the way up to Britain’s Supreme Court which then referred it to Europe. Now it appears the European Court will decide how the targets are to be reached.

A big problem area for Britain is the use of diesel in cars, the biggest source of pollution. Successive governments have encouraged them on the ground that diesel emits less carbon dioxide. However, they do emit half the nitrogen dioxide and 80% of the particulates found in London’s air.

Now 30% of all cars in the UK are diesel, and the number is growing as more than half of all new cars sold each year being diesel. Most people purchased them in the belief that they were best for the environment.

Now the government will have to find a way to produce better air quality for its citizens while not disenfranchising those citizens who drive diesel vehicles.

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