Frank Kelly: We have to get to grips with London’s filthy air

Our appalling air quality isn’t due to lack of attention by professionals or lack of awareness in government
A cyclist wearing a mask on London Bridge during recent heavy smog
Frank Kelly6 May 2014
WEST END FINAL

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Last week Boris Johnson declined to testify to MPs about the state of London’s air quality. It’s not an encouraging sign. The UK’s air quality improvements have miserably stalled and in London especially this now poses a significant threat to our health.

We have breached EU limit values for nitrogen dioxide (NO2) every year since 2005; worse, there is no prospect of complying with them until 2025. More worryingly, evidence showing the detrimental effects of air pollution on health has increased substantially. Particulate matter (PM), the vast majority of which is found in vehicle fumes, is estimated to be responsible for 29,000 deaths each year in the UK and more than 3,000 in London. In 2012, particulates in diesel fumes were classified as carcinogenic. The following year the World Health Organisation concluded that concentrations of PM and NO2 even lower than the EU limits can be harmful.

Our appalling air quality isn’t due to lack of attention by professionals or lack of awareness in government. I and other expert witnesses gave evidence to the Commons Environmental Audit Committee in 2010 and 2011. The ensuing reports were clear in their conclusions: the 2011 report said “the Government has failed to get to grips with the issue” and “must not continue to put the health of the nation at risk”.

Three years on, the European Commission launched legal proceedings against the UK for excessive emissions of NO2. This and the spike in air pollution that we experienced early last month, at the same time as Saharan dust was settling on the capital, has reawakened interest in air quality. The Commons committee has just launched another enquiry examining progress made since 2011. Sadly, in London, to date that amounts to little more than painfully slow progress in retrofitting the bus fleet to clean up its emissions.

What is behind such political indifference? Do politicians not understand the magnitude of the problem, or do they just feel there are more important issues?

In London, the primary source of air pollution is transport and specifically the diesel engines that power nearly all our buses and taxis and about 50 per cent of cars. To cut pollution we must reduce traffic and ensure that what remains on the road is cleaner.

We could do so through a more effective low-emission zone; investing in clean and affordable public transport; moving back from diesel to petrol or at least banning all highly polluting diesel vehicles; lowering speed limits and enhancing cycle routes. Focused awareness campaigns could change public behaviour. But it has to be done with conviction. There will be costs — but these should be balanced against the cost of the impact of air pollution in the UK, estimated at up to £19 billion a year.

Cracking air pollution is a huge challenge. It is highly unlikely that our major cities will ever be able to boast “pure” air, especially if strategies focus on small areas of an overall road network, such as the Mayor’s planned central ultra-low-emissions zone: air pollution does not respect any boundaries. But with bold, realistic and moral leadership, there is enormous potential to reduce air pollution and end its toll on our health.

Frank Kelly is professor of environmental health at King’s College London

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