So, we put together all of these agreements, with great intentions, but then fail to comply. Will we see the same coming out of the accords of COP 21.
No, is our answer. Putting aggressive limits will force aggressive pursuit of the goals. Our collective acknowledgement of the dire need to cut carbon is a great start. We know from there we can quickly implement the changes to comply.
Out of the race to cut air pollution levels will come new science, engineering improvements, and new jobs and economic growth. Quality of life will soar to new heights in the city.
London takes just one week to breach annual air pollution limits
London has already breached annual pollution limits just one week into 2016, and only weeks after the government published its plans to clean up the UK's air.
Parts of the capital have already breached EU hourly limits for nitrogen dioxide pollution which causes thousands of premature deaths each year.
Under EU rules, sites are only allowed to breach hourly limits of NO2 18 times in a year, but this morning Putney broke that limit for the 19th time. Chelsea and Kensington is expected to do the same later today.
Oxford Street has almost certainly also broken the limit already, having breached the hourly level a thousand times last year, but the monitoring station has malfunctioned.
Campaigners said it was “breathtaking” the breach had come so early, though Oxford Street breached the annual limit in two days in 2015.
The UK has been in breach of EU pollution limits for five years now and last spring was ordered by the Supreme Court to publish an action plan on how to tackle the major health crisis. That plan was published in December, but London, Birmingham, Leeds, Liverpool, Cardiff and Edinburgh and other major cities will still be in breach of NO2 limits for at least another five years, despite the measures.
Andrew Grieve, an air quality analyst at King’s College London, which measures London’s air pollution levels, said the early breach was not extraordinary looking at data from previous years.
“It’s just [that] central London, and London as a whole, have a really huge problem with NO2.
Breaching so early in the year really just illustrates how big a problem it is,” he told the Guardian. He added that there were lots of similar roads to those that breached limits earlier but did not have monitors on them.
Campaigners and politicians blamed the government for the breach.
Alan Andrews, a lawyer for ClientEarth, an NGO which warned last month that the action plan was inadequate, said: “This is exactly why we are taking the government back to court. Its failure to deal with illegal levels of air pollution, which causes thousands of early deaths in London every year, is a scandal.”
Simon Birkett, founder and director of Clean Air in London, said: “It is breathtaking that toxic air pollution in London has breached the legal limit for a whole year within a few days.”
Labour MEP, Seb Dance, said the government should ‘put up or shut up’: “Receiving this dubious accolade has become a depressing annual event for London. NOx [which includes NO2] kills thousands of Londoners every year, but the government shows no inclination to take proper action.
“Tory Ministers say the right things, but in reality they have lobbied hard against ambitious new EU air quality targets and have let car manufacturers off the hook after the VW scandal. It’s time for the UK government to put up or shut up.”
A report commissioned by mayor Boris Johnson last year found that nearly 9,500 people die prematurely each year because of the capital’s dirty air. An ultra low emissions zone is due to begin in 2020 in London to help tackle the problem.
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