Europe's Smoggy Season Propels Air Quality Talks
© Environment News Service (ENS) 2000
June 21, 2000
LONDON, England, June 21, 2000 (ENS) - Widespread smog blanketed England this past weekend with all seven of the country's monitoring regions recording high levels of ozone air pollution. It was the country's first smog of the summer season and prompted the UK's Environment Minister Michael Meacher to ask for public help to reduce air pollutants.
Meacher called upon motorists to think twice before driving. The largest single source of pollution in urban areas of the UK is motor vehicles.
Ozone is described as high in Britain when hourly averages exceed 90 parts per billion (ppb). Levels of air pollution are described as low, moderate, high, and very high based on their effects on people's health.
Those suffering from lung disease, including asthma, particularly the elderly, could find their symptoms getting worse, warned the UK Department of Health's Committee on the Medical Effects of Air Pollutants, which sets the breakpoints between the moderate, high and very high bands.
"It is important that we all have access to air pollution information to allow us to assess the impact of air pollutant levels on our health, and so that we can play our part in reducing levels of air pollutants," said Meacher.
"But information is not enough - the essential thing is to sort the problem out. Ozone is a pollutant which needs international action for its control," Meacher said.
In January, the UK government published an Air Quality Strategy, which set out national policies for improving air quality.
The UK sees this national strategy as complementing the European Commission's draft National Emission Ceilings Directive (NECD). This law now making its way through the European Union's legislative process would set emissions ceilings for four atmospheric pollutants - sulphur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, volatile organic compounds and ammonia.
The draft NECD is up for discussion at the council meeting of the European Union (EU) environment ministers on Thursday.
The European Commission, the EU's executive branch, proposed the emissions ceilings directive in June 1999, and the European Parliament completed first reading of the legislation in March.
Ozone is known as an international pollutant, meaning emissions in one country can react in the air to form ozone in another country, so cooperative action amongst countries is needed to reduce European ozone levels.
As well as ground level ozone, the National Emission Ceilings Directive aims to tackle the other environmental problems of acid rain and excess nitrogen.
The draft NECD parallels the recently agreed United Nations Economic Commission for Europe's (UNECE) Gothenberg Protocol. This international agreement, adopted in Gothenburg, Sweden in November 1999, sets emission ceilings for 2010 for the same four pollutants - sulphur, NOx, VOCs and ammonia.
Once the Gothenberg Protocol is fully implemented in 2010, Europe’s sulphur emissions should be cut by at least 63 percent, its NOx emissions by 41 percent, its VOC emissions by 40 percent and its ammonia emissions by 17 percent compared to 1990.For two out of the four pollutants - volatile organic compounds, the major precursor to ground level ozone, and sulphur dioxide - the UK must make the largest reductions of any EU member state.
The Portuguese EU Presidency has called for agreement on the National Emission Ceilings Directive at Thursday's Council meeting.
In addition to the NECD, the European Commission has also proposed a revised Ozone Directive as part of its strategy for lowering ozone levels and acid rain in Europe. Work on this law will continue under the forthcoming French Presidency of the European Union which begins July 1.