Clean Air Day: Measures and policies to reduce air pollution, including vehicle emission controls, and likely future scenarios for air quality abatement

Author Anna Jones | Posted on
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15 June 2023 is Clean Air Day. To celebrate we are sharing this blog post by MSc Environmental Management student Sam Smith:

Happy Clean Air Day!

The theme this year is human health (Global Action Plan, 2023). Why? Because air pollution is the single greatest environmental health risk (Fuller et al., 2022). It is a leading, but preventable cause of disease (Lelieveld et al., 2020; PHE, 2018).

We have nationally set limits of safe exposure for many pollutants, but really, even below these limits, less exposure means better health outcomes (Landrigan et al., 2018). The good news is that the levels of many pollutants are now lower than ever (DEFRA, 2023). In the UK, exposure to unsafe levels happens mainly in ‘hotspots’ which are overwhelmingly due to road transport emissions (DEFRA, 2022; PHE, 2019).

Now, we’ve had air quality legislation for a long time, and the air quality limits were supposed to be achieved by 2010 (Barnes et al., 2018). A major reason they weren’t is that national strategy relied heavily on vehicle emissions standards (ibid.).

Dieselgate

Car exhaust. Source: (Pixbay.com, 2023)

New cars sold in the UK must pass the latest ‘Euro Standards’ test, which limits their exhaust emissions. While ‘Euro 5’ petrol vehicles performed as expected, Euro 5 diesels produced a lot more pollution in real world conditions than during the emissions tests (Weiss et al., 2011). Scandalously, some manufacturers were even caught cheating the tests (Meyer et al., 2023)! At the same time, people and businesses were encouraged to buy fuel-efficient diesel vehicles to tackle climate change (Barnes et al., 2008). Many Euro 5 vehicles are still on the road, and we are stuck with a legacy of polluting diesels, particularly in commercial fleets (Meyer et al., 2023).

Many air quality measures designed to work with vehicle standards, such as Low Emission Zones (LEZs), were ineffective, as the Euro 5 diesels allowed entry continued to be polluting (Barnes et al., 2018). The tests were overhauled for the current standard of Euro 6 and diesels are performing better, though again, this hasn’t reduced air pollution in cities as much as expected (Ghaffarpasand et al., 2020; Ko et al., 2020). Euro 7 is on the horizon for 2025, with lower emissions limits (EC, 2022). How low, though, is still being decided, with fierce lobbying from car manufacturers likely to weaken the standards (TE, 2021).

Not in it for the money

LEZs are an effective tool for improving air quality (PHE, 2019). However, support for creating LEZs is weak (Yougov.co.uk, 2021), perhaps due to a confusing set of rules and prices that varies between cities, and a perception that LEZs exist to make money (Mehdizadeh and Shariat-Mohaymany, 2021).

Confusing LEZ rules. Source: author.

Looking to Scotland, where all LEZs have the same rules and fines (Scottish Government, 2021), we can imagine a more understandable system for the rest of the UK. In Scotland, you cannot pay to enter a LEZ with a non-compliant vehicle and are instead charged an increasing fine for each entry (ibid.). This prevents entry being seen as an expense and demonstrates that LEZs exist to separate people from pollution, not to generate money. Of course, air pollution from traffic remains a local problem for which bespoke solutions are best (PHE, 2019). LEZ prices are something that could be standardised, provided we remember the least privileged and least polluting people often suffer most from air pollution (Barnes, Chatterton and Longhurst, 2019). To avoid worsening this environmental justice issue, a national LEZ system should support all residents in purchasing compliant vehicles.

Watt’s under the hood?

It is easy to imagine future LEZs only allowing Electric Vehicles (EVs), which produce no tailpipe emissions at all, since from 2030, all new cars sold in the UK must be electric or hybrid, and, from 2035, all new vehicles must be fully battery operated (DfT, 2020). We are likely to see a fully battery powered fleet around 2050 (DfT, 2020).

An electric vehicle charging. Source: Pixbay.com (2023)

We are going to need a LOT of new infrastructure. Currently, we have around 10% of the necessary charging points, to say nothing of grid upgrades (OBR, 2021). Given the predicted paradigm shift to EV ownership (TE, 2021), it is concerning that local authorities are not required to do anything towards the EV transition (TE, 2021). Only 28% of local authorities currently have transition strategies (LocalGov, 2022), and some regions, so called ‘charging deserts’, are especially unprepared (TE, 2021). Now that reasonable funding is available (DfT, 2023), it seems fair to introduce obligations for local authorities to deliver the necessary infrastructure.

EVs still cause pollution, as harmful particles wear away from all brakes and tyres to become suspended in the air. Euro 7 will limit this (EC, 2022), but having fewer vehicles on the road is always better. Public transport can achieve this.

Serious Bus-iness

People do not feel that public transport is up to the task (Rashid et al., 2021). UK public transport is among the slowest and most expensive in Europe, partly due to the spread-out way our cities are built (CC, 2021). Allowing new or denser accommodation to be built near transport hubs could be a long-term answer.

Wales brings an interesting solution to the table, to build no new roads likely to increase emissions, and to instead divert investment towards public transport (Welsh Government, 2021). A national ‘no-roads’ policy would not be appropriate for England, given its stark regional differences (ONS, 2021) and the many benefits, such as local jobs, that new roads can bring. Regionally however, a ‘no-roads’ policy might be a useful tool.

You have the power

A cornerstone of action is to educate and inform, since personal choice makes a huge difference to air quality (Ramírez et al., 2019). Since you have read this far, Clean Air Day has hopefully earned your interest. You can calculate your own air pollution footprint and learn more at https://www.actionforcleanair.org.uk.

References

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Barnes, J.H., Hayes, E.T., Chatterton, T.J. and Longhurst, J.W.S. (2018) Policy disconnect: A critical review of UK air quality policy in relation to EU and LAQM responsibilities over the last 20 years. Environmental Science & Policy. [online]. 85, pp.28–39.

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