Prof. Anil Namdeo, Professor of Air Quality Management and Net Zero in the Department of Geography and Environmental Sciences, Northumbria University, Newcastle, UK has delivered the AQML 38 talk on “Air Quality Management in the UK – Challenges and New Developments”
Okay good morning and good afternoon I’m going to talk about air quality management in the UK and because this series is about air quality management so uh previous presenters from the UK have given you some idea about how the air quality in the UK is and how it is addressed at different
Levels in spite of many developments in the last 25 30 years there are still challenges in meeting a quality standards and objectives within the UK so local Authority level and central government level new developments are taking place local authorities and those who are responsible for delivering a
Quality in the country are facing a lot of challenges as we discussed before some political challenges some economic challenges some uh personality challenges and technological challenges so we are going to look at some of those challenges we are facing here in the UK and what are the new developments to overcome those
Challenges first I will give you a very brief perspective global perspective of air pollution it’s related it’s relationship with health how it affects then I will give you some indication of how air quality in the UK has changed what are the main sources then we look at
How air quality is managed in the UK and how hot spots are the areas which exceed the standards are declared and once they’re declared what do we do to bring the levels or exposures down to acceptable levels so what are the challenges there then in the end I will present the new
Developments which were listed by gopa in the introduction and we’ll see how they can help us in achieving the goal of delivering good air quality for the citizens in the UK and probably other countries can also learn from our experience here we all know I I don’t have to
Reinforce this because previous 37 presenters have highlighted how important the issue of air pollution is understanding how where it is generated and how it can be managed so air pollution is a one of the biggest Global public health hazard a recent study which published the ranking of risk
Factors for health for the world has listed air pollution as the fifth biggest factor causing deaths in the world everyone knows wh figure of 7 million deaths per year so that is Health effect it also has economic impacts people do not not realize that exposure to air pollution
Can cause economic impacts as well so it’s close to three trillion dollar per year because of absences from work people going to hospitals needing treatment and government and individuals spending money on their treatment that costs about $3 trillion per year we all heard in the last 3 to four
Years the impact of ID and we also looked at how and who are the people who were affected by uh covid several studies were conducted and they all came to conclusion that people who were exposed long-term to air pollution they were most likely to be affected more
Severely by covid than people who were not exposed to higher level of pollution so there is a clear link between long-term exposure to air pollution your immunity and resistance to impact of exposure to air pollution so out of the 7 m 7 million deaths predominantly they’re being caused in developing
Countries and if you look at the Box bottom box here it says that Bangladesh China India and Pakistan have 49 of the 50 most polluted cities in the world and if you look at this map it shows the one of the key pollutant PM 2.5 and you can see the belt in the
Middle in Asia South Asia southeast Asia Africa and Latin America you can see this is where the PM 2.5 levels are higher than uh than upper part of the globe and that directly links with number of deaths attributed to air pollution so 7 million deaths and you can see the darker colors
Represent the number of people whose death can be attributed to pollution and again you can see the band near India Pakistan Bangladesh and uh southeast Asia so what are the symptoms what are the diseases which are linked with air pollution and air pollution is a significant contributor to many of the
Diseases for example if you pick up lung cancer about 20% deaths are attributed to ution COPD which is respiratory illnesses illness is 41% and look at other figures is stroke diabetes heart disease respiratory infections they range from 11% to 35% so air pollution is a big public
Health hazard it doesn’t receive as much attention as it should receive if you look at the number of people who are suffering and dying from exposure to air pollution there should be an a global emergency declared because of air pollution but we don’t hear much about
Exposure unless you are in the sphere of air pollution research or teaching you will not hear much about air pollution only when we have certain episodes for example currently going on in Delhi you’ll hear about air pollution and then people forget about it once the episode is gone so
Pm2.5 pollution is PM 2.5 is one of the biggest contributor to air pollution related health effects so it is it it was linked to nearly 3 million early deaths in 2017 and more than half of these deaths occurred in China and India and South Asian countries so other than the diseases I
Have listed before uh air pollution is also linked with neurological disease link it is also linked with decline in cognitive functions you know how brain responses to stimula stimulations or stimulants so people’s thinking process can be affected and that’s why it’s called cognitive decline responses to different stresses can be worsened if
People are exposed to ation they have been studied which have linked exposure to apption with uh reduction in fertility and child obesity and child birth uh incidences childhood obesity is one of the biggest Factor but not many people know that it can it is also linked with exposure to air
Pollution so here in the UK uh the abstract for my seminar say is about 26,000 to 33,000 number of deaths attributed to ation so UK government set up a committee called comep committee on medical effect of air pollutants and They carried out rigorous investigation Gathering of
Evidence and they came up with a figure of 29,000 deaths in the UK per year linked with PM 2.5 alone 29,000 deaths per year then European commission global burden of disease study and Department of environment for food and Rural Affairs in the UK they all have come up
With range of estimates depending on which methodology they have used but you can see the number has varied from 29,000 to 52,000 if you combine other pollutants multiple pollutant effect is more than just single pollutant for example 2.5 is only 29,000 but if you combine the effect of NO2 and p2.5 is about
52,000 deaths per year so very recently the UK’s England’s chief medical officer published a report they published a report annually but annual report of 2022 focused specifically on air pollution realizing the importance of air pollutions link with health so on the left hand side you can see the life course effect of air
Pollution on humans right from the pregnancy all the way to Childhood adulthood and when you are old so low birth weight has been linked with exposure to Evolution children are one of the most vulnerable groups children and elderly and people who are already suffering from certain health conditions
They are the most vulnerable when it comes to exposure to evolution in children asthma we very well known that it is linked with exposure to Evolution not many people know that it is also linked with developmental problems slower development of lung function and start of atherosclerosis I don’t know how many
People know this this is the beginning of narrowing of arteries in the body narrowing of the art Aries is linked with heart disease and stroke so that shows that even at childhood stage exposure to air pollution can lead to bigger problems when people become adult so heart disease lung
Cancer COPD diabetes they’re all linked with exposure ation in elderly it can accelerate decline of lung function so again respiratory illnesses and stroke dementia dementia is also linked with exposure Aion and on the right hand side you can see the name or the type of the pollutants which affect different organs
Or systems of the body right from the brain to Our Eyes Nose and Throat to lungs and kidneys and reproductive system so I’m not going to go over every organ and which pollutants are linked with it but you can see that the are four pollutants predominantly affect
Most of the system human system and organs so how is their pollution changing in the UK so the peaks of air pollution were around 1970s and 1980s and then the government started taking action developing policies and regulations uh to bring the air pollution emissions and concentrations down so this slide shows how with
Respect to 1970 levels of different pollutant PM 2.51 nitrogen oxides ammonia not many people link ammonia with as an air pollution but ammonia is also one of the biggest contributor to air pollution exposure so you can see there has been a steady decline in emissions this slide shows emissions not concentration
Of the major pollutant here so if you just pick up one example for example here PM 2.5 and look at the sources so if you take NO2 for example you will find that you can identify the sources more related to the use of fossil fuel uh Motor Vehicles Industries
But particulate matter which is linked with say 29,000 deaths in the UK and and 3 million deaths globally you can see it is not only the road transport and interal sources but also resuspension of dust break and tire we cooking domestic fires don’t know whether can you see my mouse probably
Just yes we can see po Okay so if you look at for example a typical urban center you can categorize the sources into four sources natural sources for example sea salt wind blown dust forest fires and so on natural forest fires they contribute small portion then transboundary which is coming from
International other countries for example here in the UK coming from sou southern part of uh Europe Spain France and all the way up to Sahara Desert then you have Regional PM 2.5 which is contributed by neighboring cities and towns that is again significant then in the city itself you
Have Urban contribution caused by Motor Vehicles Industries break and tire weer cooking and other combustion so this is what we are trying to reduce and the department of environment food and Rural Affairs and they predict that by 2030 we should be able to bring down the pm2.5 concentrations below the
Wh standard of 10 which is wh 2005 guidelines but now the new wh guideline which came out in 2021 has recommended 5 microG per M cube of PM 2.5 which is going to be very difficult to achieve here in the UK where generally the because of the weather and uh uh meterological
Conditions and sources is still lower than many other countries and we will be struggling to achieve wh standard 2021 so the UK government has developed this framework called a quality management framework so they ask every local authority to carry out monitoring conduct modeling and apply Source apportionment
Studies to find out what are the areas where air quality standards exceed or exceeded if they are exceeded then they have to declare those area as Air Quality Management areas aqas then the local authorities will have to develop air quality management strategies some are shortterm some are mid medium term some
And some are longterm some are techical which is only applied to a particular area and some are strategic applied to the whole city and whole region some measures are hard like technological measures some measures are soft for example and encouraging people to shift the mode from private transport to
Public transport from private transport to active travel like walking and cycling and so on So Soft measures are very important then the local authorities evaluate the impact of these action plans before implementation during implementation and after implementation find out whether a particular strategy has been effective or not so this air quality management
Framework is slightly different for three or four uh regions of the UK in England is slightly different than Scotland Wales and Northern Ireland but every part of the country has to conduct this air quality management approval process produce report and every local Authority in the UK is required now to
Some now to submit annual progress report or status report the names are different for different regions and if the problems are still there then here to declare action plan what are the plans what are the ways when which local authorities can use to manage a equality in their jurisdiction
Action plans so lot of local authorities more than 6 500 local authorities and they all have come up with different action plans so you’ll see in the next slides that there are plenty of action plans but still there are exceedences of air quality standards in the UK so these are Air Quality Management
Areas declared in the UK right from Northern Ireland Scotland England Wales and you can see some are most of them are focused around big cities London Birmingham Manchester Liverpool Newcastle Edinburgh and this here in Dublin so the latest figure which we have are about 500 uh 600 38 Air Quality
Management areas declared in the UK predominantly you will see that they are declared for NO2 nitrogen dioxide level so NO2 standard in the UK is 40 microgram per M Cube annual mean and more than 600 Air Quality Management areas are failing to meet standard for N2 some air quality management areas are
Declared for pm10 pm2.5 and sulfur dioxide not many these are mainly related to power stations and steel plants if you look at the sources again transport dominates the air quality management area declaration different types of Roads highways and so on and then you have industrial sources domestic heating industrial processes which are
Responsible for aqas declaration in the UK so different authorities have adopted different approaches to declaring Air Quality Management areas so you carried out monitoring you had carried out modeling and you know uh certain areas in your local Authority jurisdiction are not meeting the standard so you can declare air quality management area
Along the source where or along the area which is not meeting the standard for example here in Manchester all the roads have been declared as Air Quality Management areas the major roads whereas next to Manchester you have Liverpool here they have declared all of Liverpool as one air quality management area their
Philosophy is that instead of controlling individual roads we will rather control all the sources within Liverpool local Authority and then try to achieve the standard in London again all of London has been declared as a quality management area whereas here in Newcastle it’s a mixed approach you have some roads which
Are declared as aqma and Newcastle City Center here all of it is declared as a quality management area south of Newcastle another town Gat set they have also declared an area aqma so have different approaches but they’re all trying to address the same issue that these a areas are failing to
Meet equality standards for predominantly NO2 in this case so they have come up with Solutions working with the central government defra coming up with the plan so defra have recommended that most of the local local Authority should considered air quality zones so you can call them low emission zones cleaner zones or ultra
Low emission zones so in London it is called ules ultra low emission Zone any vehicle which is entering now predominantly most of London they must comply with certain emission standards if those Vehicles do not comply with that emission standard they cannot enter or if they enter Then they have to pay a
Very Hefty fine for entering that particular Zone low emission zone or ultra low emission zone so there are about 26 such zones declared in the UK eight local authorities are considering implementing them 42 local authorities or areas they thought of implementing cleia Zone Orion Zone but now they have become compliant
So they are no longer going ahead with the plan to have cleaner zone or low emission zone so C is cleaner zone so there are four types of uh cleaner zones in the UK and they’re called ABCD for the sake of simplicity so some cities
Have gone for class A so this which is basically only buses taxis and private higher Vehicles they are covered under that cleaner Zone legislation so if they don’t meet the standard then they cannot enter that particular area then you have class C and all the way to class D which includes private
Vehicles this is where uh sometimes political debates happen and some local authorities had to change the plan from class D to class C because class D included private cars and when there are a large number of people involved then there is more political unrest so some of the local
Authorities have gone down from class D to class C so basically only covering buses coaches taxis and mini buses and vans but not Cars and these are the standards EUR standards which is similar to bhat standard in India the EUR 5 EUR 6 and if
It is a diesel car then EUR 6 if it is a petrol car then Euro 4 is required so so far uh Seven Cities have gone ahead with cleaner zones bath Birmingham Bradford for Bristol Newcastle where I am currently and they have mostly gone for class B and C but Burmingham and Bristol
Are the local authorities which have gone ahead with class D where even cars are included so if a vehicle is not complying with this standard here and if it is a private car then you’re paying 9 which is about 900 rupees per day to end enter this Zone
And if it is a heavy Goods Vehicles is about 100 pound and buses and coaches again 100 pound per day to enter cleaner Zone besides these cleaner zones and low emission zones where government is also focusing on technology so electrification of vehicles promotion of electric vehicles integrating public transport
Systems because uh many times in many cities Public public transport systems are not integrated if you’re coming by bus and if you want to catch the metro then may not be a good connection between the bus services and the Metro systems or if you come on your bike
There may not be enough spaces for parking your bike and so on so now the government local authorities are going ahead with integrated public transport systems so Manchester and London are the two very good examples of integrated public transport systems in Newcastle where I am currently there is no integrated public
Transport system so many bus operators each operating on maybe similar route same route and competing with the passengers for uh ridership so empty buses are running on roads that is not a good way of running a public transport system and then you have Park and Ride
Schemes where you bring your car to the out skut of the the city and take the bus to the city center so that reduces number of uh private Vehicles going to the city center there also uh in London most of London now and many other cities there’s
Speed reduction in cities so it has gone down from 30 mil which is 50 km/ hour to 20 M 20 m per hour which is about 30 km per hour then you have new technology uh adaptive speed management vehicles are enough fit with the technology which will automatically reduce the speed of
Vehicles if you’re entering if you’re to a Zone where the speed limit has changed on motorways they have variable speed during peak times the speed is reduced from 70 m per hour to sometimes 60 or even 50 m per hour so that traffic flow is smooth fright also Goods delivery also contributes significant
IFly to air pollution in cities and towns so how do you manage your Freight is very important people are buying more and more online so the on delivery the V which are delivering Goods to you at in your home making more trips can we manage this can we have hubs or big
Lores coming to some of these centers in the city scattered around the the peripher and then bring using electric V to bring the goods to the city and the biggest cause which we have seen the problem caused by private Vehicles is model shift how do you encourage people to leave their cars and
Use public transport and walk and cycle if uh the distances are not great more than people do not like to walk more than 3 kilometers or cycle more than 3 kilomet so can you provide this last mile connectivity people use their cars because they go to the destination or or
Public public transport if you use public transport your stop maybe maybe more than 2 kilometers away from the metro station that last mile connectivity is the problem and which causes people to still use their private Vehicles can you can you provide solutions for Last Mile connectivity that’s the things which are being
Explor excuse me so electric scooters are one of the solutions so my take on this is we have looked at so many action plans so many solutions but if a government is looking at one size fit all solution it is not going to work there a range of problems
Range of sources contributing to air pollution each location is different the sources are different activity patterns are different people industrial towns operate differently than commuter towns Topography of the towns are very important mety which way the wind is coming from can we use that knowledge to site Industries not
Up wind but maybe down wind of the Cities so these are the factors which have to be taken into account in my opinion currently these are missing in planning and and policy development is our policy Proactive or reactive reactive is for example what is happening in Deli when you have
Accidents of air quality then you suddenly react and start applying gra which is graduated response to ation start shutting down construction and industries that is a reactive policy what you need is a proactive policy you plan for the years ahead months ahead so that that you don’t have these sudden acciden and emergencies
Declared for example in Delhi do we have the right set of regulations does it cover all parts so from sources to activity and the policy involvement of people or Regulators is it integrated is it forward looking so I’m going to present a a very good case of forward-looking
Policy uh here which is just being tried in the UK and we’ll see how it works whether it works or not forward-looking policy 25e plan I will cover that in few minutes and I think we have too much F emphasis on technological interventions so actually techn technological interventions are very well known and
Can be developed probably easily not very easily but they can be developed is the implementation enforce ment and education and awareness aspects which are missing here and if you’re talking about air pollution we have too much Focus emphasis on outdoor air pollution here in the UK and most of the cold countries
Cold climate countries in Europe we spend 90% of our time indoors and we focusing too much on outdoor air quality how does outdoor air quality in filterate indoors and vice versa so we don’t have good understanding of this outdoor indoor Continuum how are the buildings designed how are they
Ventilated and so on the layout the distance between the roads and buildings and so on that has not been understood fully so we need to spend more time on that aspect and as I said no single solution and no National solution can work sometimes we need local solutions for local
Problems and public perception and acceptability of policies whatever solution you come up with is very important otherwise you’re bound to have failure so I’m going to give a brief rundown on the new developments in the second half of my presentation so at National level the First Act which first most
Important Act was environment act 1995 which resulted in the air quality management local air quality management framework which I presented in the previous slides but now recently we have new developments for example air quality standards regulation 2010 and then we left European union brexit and before that we had European
Laws and legislation and policy which was transposed in the UK now we are no longer part of the European Union so we had to have our own set of policies and laws so the government UK government is working very hard to come up with their own plans so that’s why they have 25
Year envirment plan which was first uh planned in 2018 then environment act 2021 and three other legislation I mentioned and in the end I will cover Net Zero because usually you’ll find that air quality legislation is discussed separately with and carbon climate change uh policy is discussed separately
Although in my opinion they have inter relationship and they might affect each other so I will give you a brief rundown on on how Net Zero policies can affect air quality and vice versa and then at local level we have seen this local a quality management framework is there any feedback loop so
When you’re when you’re discussing the changes in these acts are you listening to what is happening at local level whether it has been successful or failed and then are we correcting our policy that feedback loop is very important so here in the UK they have set up office
For Environmental Protection OE and then I’m going to talk about this framework and Improvement plan how this can help in uh closing this Loop providing this feedback loop so very briefly these are the current air quality standards in the UK so for example NO2 I mentioned anual
Mean is 40 micr per met Cube pm10 annual mean is 40 and 2.5 is 20 25 microG per M Cube but we also have daily standards for example 50 microG per M Cube not to exceed more than 35 times in one year so you might meet the annual mean standard
But they may be some acciden is in terms of number of days where the levels were higher the government doesn’t want those to go higher than 35 times per year in Scotland even strictor seven times in one year so this is after leaving the European Union the government set out a
Very ambitious plan it’s called 25e environment plan 2018 and they wanted to set out what we can we do to improve the environment within a generation so 25 years for example so I just picked up the part which is related to clean air so there are three key pillars of this 25e plan
So meeting legally binding targets the targets which I have just mentioned before or maybe the new targets to reduce emission of five damaging pollutants so we all know there are tens of pollutants and before this time we were focusing on more than 10 pollutants in the UK but government is has decided
That we are going to spend all our efforts and resources in tackling five damaging air poants rather than all of them so that this should have the har the effect of air potion on Health by 2030 that’s the goal government has also set aside this target that the they will ban the sale
Of new petrol and diesel vehicles conventional ones by 20140 then the government set a Target date of 23 30 and two months ago the Prime Minister uh changed it back to 2035 so we are still ahead of the 2040 plan but by 2035 in the UK we will not
Have any sale of new petrol and diesel cars and V then the third pillar was about industrial emissions and there are good practices they’re going ahead with the good practices approach the one which can be uh achievable so after that the government came out with environment act
2021 because we did not have any European laws enforceable in the UK so we had to come up with our own legislation and policy and according to many of the critiques it is one of the most ambitious environment programs in the world it provides the UK government with
Powers to set new binding targets there own targets may be stricter than the European Union targets for air quality water biodiversity and waste reduction so this is where they have established a new environmental Watchdog this is an independent body called office for Environmental Protection they have the power to hold
The government and other public bodies local authorities to account if a particular area is not meeting the standard they can tell the that local Authority and the central government that you must do something about it so they are an independent Watchdog office for Environmental Protection okay so under environment act
2021 there are seven parts and each part covers different aspects so part four covers air quality and environmental recall I will tell you in a minute what environmental recall is so they have come up with environmental recall part of the ACT which says that motor manufacturers or even the government
Should recall Motor Vehicles which do not meet the emission standards for that time the motor vehicles will be recalled and the manufacturers will have to either retrofit them or discard those vehicles and only introduce new vehicles which meet the standards and if you if you remember environment legislation or standard for
2010 the standard PM 2.5 was 25 microgram this environment act 2021 has set very strict standard for PM 2.5 which is 10 microgram per Meer Cube across England and they have also recommended a population exposure reduction approach this is one of the very first ones in the world so what government is saying
That even the areas which are meeting the standards people are still exposed to pollution level and if you look at wh recommendation there is no safe limit for PM 2.5 even if it is below whatever standard a country has set people are exposed to 2.5 there’s bound to be some health
Effects so they want the government UK government wants this exposure to be reduced by 35% by 2040 compared to 2018 Baseline and then to cover that to deliver that this is the environment Improvement plan 2023 so in 2018 this 25 year environment plan was published so now 5 years have
Gone since 2018 when this 25e Plan was introduced so the government has now mandatory it was required by by that act that they must give fiveyear progress report so this environment Improvement plan 2023 which is recently published has given the progress made against 10 environmental goals so these goals are listed
Here and goal number two is clean air so to to show the progress made against these 10 environmental goals a new framework has been designed it’s called outcome indicator framework o which will track the progress made under these 10 goals and one of the goal here is we are talking about is
Air so what are the indicators which will ref reflect the progress made under air environment so these are seven indicators which reflect the progress made under air so emission of five key pollutants emission of greenhouse gases from natural sources concentration of fine articulate met PM 2.5 back rural background of ozone roadside NO2
Concentrations nutrient nitrogen deposition is another very important factor which is often ignored in many of the countries but here in the UK we have focused a lot on the nitrogen deposition from atmosphere on the land and the ecosystem and how it affects the plant growth and crop growth so the government is now
Submitting progress made under achieving UT nitrogen deposition on ecosystem another pollutant which is not even mentioned in many of the countries including India is ammonia so the UK government has focused significantly on the emissions of ammonia predominantly from ATM uh agricultural practices it affects the crop as well as the land exposed to
Ammonia concentrations so government is reporting progress under this very briefly A1 which is emission of five po pollutants so these five pollutants are oxides of nitrogen pm2.5 s SO2 nonmethane VOC and ammonia so under each EIP envirment Improvement plan government has to show the progress made and you can see since
2005 there has been a steadily steady decline in emission of these five key pollutant if I pick up A3 which is concentration of PM 2.5 in air you remember the new standard is going to be 10 micr per M Cube and current standard is 25 so this is population weighted annual
Mean of PM 2.5 and you can see this has been gradual declining concentration of PM 2.5 in UK If you look at roadside NO2 concentrations from 1997 here for example shortterm medium-term and longterm there has been a steady Improvement and shortterm which is from 2015 to 2 25 years has been 29%
Reduction in roadside NO2 concentration but if you take the long-term look then it’s about 55% reduction in NO2 concentration at the roadside which is very good uh achievement so the latest legislation in the UK is air quality strategy it’s not legislation it’s the strategy for improving air quality in
The country so this is Department of environment food and Rural Affairs defra they have come up with this quality strategy 2023 which will be uh updated every 5 years now the environment act has legislated that the UK government should update this strategy every five years so this is the latest strategy
Published in April it focuses on six key areas or it has six key priorities so first one is planning reform government has realized that land use and housing development affects the transport and transport affects air quality the link between land use Transportation air quality and health is now established but not understood so
They want all the planning to take into account this sequence of events When developing any new policy any developing countries you will find I come from India so I know that in India the land is planning is on paper but you can see any local locality you go you will find shops uh
The factories small scale Industries and and many other activities they all together rather than zoning so planning is very important if you want to reduce uh exposure of people to pollution this is very important building capacity in local authorities local councils for training guidance and knowledge sharing it’s one thing that you tell
Local Authority that you have to achieve this target by this date but if they don’t have the enough skilled people trained people then they will not be able to even monitor forget about managing so building capacity at local Authority level is the plan and government is investing heavily in terms
Of training guidance and knowledge sharing third priority is reducing emission from industrial sources environmental permits are now in place domestic sources are now contribute significantly besides uh Road Transport because it’s a cold country so people use different fuel to heat their houses so burning of biomass is causing more
Smoke and pollution in local local areas and fuel prices gas and electric prices have gone up more than three to four times in the country here in the UK in last two years a lot of people cannot afford to pay electricity and basill so they’re burning whatever biomass whatever material they
Have and that is causing extra smoke pollution in certain areas this is where raising awareness within local authorities of air quality impacts and how to reduce them is important so of NOS are now working with local communities encouraging them making them aware educating them about uh The Perils
Of air pollution and what how it is linked with their activity can they change their behavior the toughest job for environmental a quality air quality manager is changing behavior of people and the polluters that is very important aspect and that if you do that then probably people will walk in cycle and
Use public transport and obviously public transport switching to public transport requires efficient reliable and affordable public transport it’s one thing saying to public that people that you have to use public transport or you should use public transport but if it is not reliable efficient and affordable people will not switch to public
Transport so the last slide I have here is about Net Zero so here in the UK the government has a new policy to achieve climate change targets they said that by 2050 we will have Net Zero which means the amount of carbon or greenhouse gas emissions will
Be equal to amount of carbon or greenhouse gases removed from the system so it’s Net Zero so that is achievable by the Target date is 2050 so there are several policies for electric generation policy generation electricity generation transport agriculture building and industries they’re specifically designed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions or
Carbon emissions but no one has looked at the effect of those policies carbon reducing policies on air quality so Royal Society has just published this report called effect of Net Zero policies and climate change on air quality and they come up with very interesting chart so this is the effect on the top
You can see the effect no effect positive effect which is related to improving air quality our negative effect which is related to poorer air quality small medium and large and no effect is here in the middle so if you pick up electric supplier electricity generation if you’re opting for
Renewable energy like solar and wind the effect will be large and in terms of air quality it will be Improvement in air quality nuclear power is another option again it will reduce air quality improve air quality because it does not use any fossil fuel CCs is carbon capture and storage
Technology it there’s some uncertainty about it whether it will have positive effect or negative impact on Air Quality Transport electric vehicles at the point of use they will definitely improve air quality electricity generation which is here for electric vehicles where the electricity is coming from will have
Impact on air quality if you’re talking about transport hydrogen has been discussed a lot government UK government is spending millions billions of pounds in developing Hydro technology for power generation and even for use in vehicles that might have some positive impact but if you’re going for biofuel
Engine it is more likely to have negative impact because where the biofuel it comes form and how when you burn biofuel it will lead to generation of nitrogen dioxide and dust agriculture practices if we start reducing the application of fertilizers then it will improve a quality ammonia emission directly linked with fertilizer
Application if people change their diet here in Europe developed countries people eat meat more than any other place see and for example meat production consumes 15 to 20 times more water than for example if you’re growing vegetables and that has direct impact on carbon emissions so that is kind of
Policies this report looked at buildings again heating if you’re heating your houses here in cold countries like England if you’re using gas predominantly it is the gas which is used to heat houses but now they are absorbing heat from atmosphere or from the ground so they’re called Ground
Source heat pumps or air source heat pumps they have shown that this way you’re using less Fuel and air quality is improved retrofitting of the houses again can have positive effect as well as negative impact positive effect in terms of carbon emissions if you making houses energy efficient and airtight
Then you’re using less fuel however when you make houses airtight the indoor air pollution will stay indoors and then it could lead to worsening of air quality so that’s why retrofitting of the houses air tightening of houses could have negative impacts okay so I’m going
To give you a summary of what we have discussed in this uh seminar so we have seen that in the UK although we have very good air quality we still have uh exces of air quality standards local air quality management framework is very good at identifying
Problem may not be coming up with the solutions right Solutions so we need to understand the uncertainty and bottleneck in delivering air quality benefits of action plans including net zeros we shouldn’t forget that one policy which is designed for one particular aspect could have adverse effect on air quality and vice versa we
Need to understand that difference that link between policies so we have seen that legislation is very important and long-term proactive legislation rather than reactive leg legislation is the key here and then in my opinion involving citizens and communities is very important they need to understand their needs and behavior activity pattern is
Very important where people live why they live how do they travel why do they choose a particular mode of Transport unless you understand and that reason you will not be able to bring out any changes and we also need to look at environmental justice or Injustice here
In the UK I’m sure in India as well it is probably the deprived population poor people who are exposed to higher level of pollution can we reduce that environmental Injustice can we protect vulnerable people young children elderly and those people who are already suffering from medical conditions
So with that I stop and happy to take your questions yeah Hil thank you very much it was a wonderful lecture covering the various aspects of we look for questions have one quick photo with you and so I’ll just request everybody to start your camera we’ll have a we’ll
Capture a a group photo and then we’ll discuss the questions okay gopika will you be able to take are you Ashwin okay thank you thank this is really you covered you know various aspects that are relevant to air quality management I thought before we take up online
Questions one thing which I I just noticed UK really learn lot try to understand they really address after the SM pollution problem in 1952 and uh we have not come across such a issues after that so I mean it that uh the they are very good in addressing the problem and
Have come out with some regulations it can regulate the air pollutions now in the the current context we know that the air pollution mostly comes from you know we always look at it automobile as one culit otherwise we look at it the the thermal power plants the coal burning is the
Another which generally contributes so do you think that over the period of time maybe in a 10 years line or a 15 years line the sources which contributes this Air Quality Management areas based on your experience or based on you you are part of so many you know committees you know leading many
Delegations so what you think like in India because this is one observation India We Carry Out Source of pment studies and the more or Les the identified sources are still same yeah very thoughts on that direction yes certainly Shiva very valid points and the you know the landscape of
The sources and understanding sources has changed if you remember when we were studying we looked at Stern’s book and it all focused on Industrial sources and because they were the main sources at that time considered to be causing pollution so the focus was more on industrial pollution and
Then there was a better handling of that probably in certain countries so then they started realizing that the contribution of Industries is going down then other sectors for example transport and domestic the and agriculture their proportion has gone up so then now they had to start addressing those issues and
You cannot take one source at one time and start dealing with it and we have seen from my presentation and many other presentations before that it is the range of sources and you have to have a holistic approach to it so that’s why if you remember one of the slides I
Mentioned about the zoning and the policy and understanding everything rather than just looking at one aspect just one uh contributor is not going to work okay yeah thank you so uh the other aspects in terms of you know regulatory in terms and regulations I always feel that major challenge in in any country
So what is the you know maybe lesons learned from in you in UK in implementing the various air quality management guidelines or maybe even for the designating the air quality uh Management areas so what is the lessons learned and how it will be to the developing countries I
Think you have got this nailed correctly because any country can develop the legislation or even just adopt wh standard so developing a policy is one thing regulation is one thing but enforcement and implementation is the key we all know grp in Delhi and many other states they have their own policy
But implementation is lacking in some places for example pu pollution under control certificate in India of of Motor Vehicles if it is enforced correctly it can result in Improvement in you know emissions from motor vehicles but if it is not enforced correctly then it is just a piece of paper
Certificate okay okay good um other question which is I thought I should some some suggestion from you focus towards NO2 in terms of in most of the other countries also we have seen that there are a lot of measurements on NO2 even in India we have started looking into do you
Not that between NO2 and PM 2.5 and any such you know uh driving or indic Source yeah certainly very good point if you remember the CED Time Project which you and I work together and we looked at historic data of air quality in Delhi for last 15 20
Years and if you look at any media coverage any report they all all talk about PM 2.5 or pm10 no one not a single report has talked about NO2 and in Delhi NO2 also exceeds the standards Indian standards as well as wh standard so we we are just
Focusing on one politon PM 2.5 ignoring at the same time other Pol and so if you develop policy for PM 2.5 you might not be able to cover the policy uh you know the sources which are contributing to NO2 so you need to have all the key
Pollutants in mind and we have seen from evidence that NO2 and PM 2.5 or 10 are the two key pollutant I give you one example of wrong policy in the UK and we have learned the lesson so about 15 years ago UK government set aside the carbon challenge that we need to have
Reduced carbon emissions by 2050 and they realize oh Motor Vehicles are causing more carbon emissions and diesel vehicles actually use less they produce less carbon per kilometer of travel per liter of fuel burn so they started encouraging diesel vehicles 15 years 15 to 20 years ago heavy promotion of diesel
Vehicles lot of incentives and subsidies and flooded Market was flooded more than 60% vehicles in the UK about five years ago where diesel vehicles then they realize okay yeah carbon emissions have gone down but pm2.5 and NO2 level have gone up because diesel vles contribute more to fine particles and now we have
Another problem so you try to uh bring down carbon emissions but now he increased PM 2.5 levels in the cities so that policy was wrong so but they realized that policy was wrong so now they have stopped promoting diesel vehicles and by 2040 actually now the government is saying 2035 will not have
Any sale of petrol and diesel vehicles oh that’s really nice to hear that there are some couple of questions online uh so uh are established guidelines and standards for indoor air quality PM indoor PM 2.5 PM 10 similar I just we only discuss more of urban air quality management mostly when we talk
About ambient are there any specific guidelines rules available to manage indoor air quality in UK has very good point actually and if you remember one of the point I mentioned was that indoor air qualties often ignored in discussions and we spend significant amount of time indoors and all the legislation all over the
World are related to outdoor air quality we have only Occupational Health standards but they’re very high levels so if you a worker in say in a cement plant or power station or fertilizer plant then the standards are there for occupational exposure but there are no standards set standards I am aware of
Which are which deal with indoor air quality we still apply outdoor air quality so yes there is a need to have indoor air quality standards this a one more important question so this validation of Health impacts due to hair pollution is although there exist but there is a need
For doing long-term quad studies uh maybe comparing three different areas or four different areas identifying polluted non-polluted background some some aspect is required are there any such you know studies been carried out in UK and what what lessons are what experience they they learned so very
Good question I think it’s from gup G is that right yeah yes yes yes so gup very good point and very different thinking this is what I like because everyone has relied on certain longitudinal studies know six cities studies in USA and papa study Which is popular air pollution
Exposure in Asia some of those study so long-term longitudinal studies so they have established the association between exposure a pollution and health response but there is a geographic variation and temporal variation and short-term exposure so we are talking about long-term exposure versus acute short-term exposure what is happening in
Delhi right now is short-term exposure as well as long-term both and that is that response is not understood correctly yet there are some studies here in Europe which have linked acute acute exposure and to uh response but not in places like Delhi or many other Indian cities so yes there is need
To have the these uh short-term as well as long-term studies and also involve cohorts for example pregnant women children and elderly people and those who already have asthma and other symptoms thanks yeah go go ahead go ahead yeah my question was also you know slightly uh toward the community welfare
That uh um in Delhi we have noticed that uh people are exposed to very very high level of exposure of Co NO2 pm2.5 so and we are seeing again and again that there are Health implications people are dying and so many million people will die so they say we’ll die so
People have been living around many air quality stations in Delhi there are about 40 air quality stations in Delhi but I have been telling health specialist and in fact I offered that I’ll be willing to sponsor studies if some health authorities can take up a study in a local area where air quality
Monitoring station is located so around that there maybe about 10,000 people living in that area so have they are they prepared to do any health studies on this how many people have suffered because of high exposure of Co how many people have suffered because of high dust pm2.5 and how many people have
Suffered because of high NO2 and because they have been living there for now almost 15 year because in Delhi air quation started in 2010 and now there are about 40 stations so I am very keen that if someone can take up this local level studies to find out really what
Has really happened to those people have they died have they suffered immensely or or there are no effects our standards are uh needs to be relaxed or what is going to happen so we are very confused whether should we follow this standards or shall we not follow these
Standards gup G in my air pollution lectures to my students here I have one slide which say that air monitoring stations are fixed locations they only represent air quality in that particular location at that particular location where they are cited that is not where people live people live in different locations you
Know away from those monitoring stations some are very close to activity some are away from the activity a lot of people especially in developing count this means we have wrong data with us yeah so that so we need uh so I call it static versus Dynamic a quality data
Static data is fixed from station fixed stations Dynamic air quality is the real time spatial and temporal variation in air quality this is where people are exposed lot of studies here here in Europe also they Ed people’s location where they live and associated with uh air quality people don’t people are
People are not static they move around in one hour they are at home second hour they are walking on the road or cycling or going in their car third hour they’re in the workplace and then lunchtime they doing some shopping so you need to have this community level 24-hour
Exposure platform then and I fully agree with you that you can’t do it at a bigger scale just just select a small area yes and study these people and Link it with your fixed station and see how representative that station is right thank you thank you
Then there is a one question related to Net Zero by 2070 so there are uks two 2,000 Generating Station relies on renewable energy compared to India where coal based power plants are heavily relied on to meet the energy security is there any specific policy of the UK that worked
Well and could be sustainable um to you know in achieving Net Zero by 2070 I think for yeah very good point again very good point and I’m glad that India has come up with this uh Net Zero L you know 2070 prime minister Narendra
Modi did it I think 2 years ago when we hosted this big International Conference yeah so UK have gone ahead with 2050 a small country so maybe they can achieve it India is a very fast developing large country so 2070 is more realistic power generation is 40% of carbon emissions in
India so if you’re relying on low inferior quality coal then it is is not going to help India is lucky fortunate that it has abundant sunshine and Coastal area where wind is there you can and government Indian government is going ahead with solar and renewable other renewable energy generation but
Even here in the UK where the solar power is not that strong wattage still we are able to generate electricity from solar panels so think of India where out of 365 days more than 310 days are sunny you can generate more solar energy and wind energy and replace inferior quality
Coal and capture carbon capture is the technology which UK have invested heavily and now they are ready to sell it to the other countries so this is the uh you know business Acumen they they realize that most of the countries will need some technology to capture carbon so they had developed this technology
Now they’re selling it to other countries so if you’re if if you think ahead then you can have businesses which can benefit you yeah uh thanks anel I think it was a wonderful talk and the discussions were very useful and you covered almost starting from the air quality characteristics in different places
Identifying Air Quality Management areas then linking through the health and some experience in addressing the air pollution issues in UK so it was a a wonderful talk we on behalf of you know air quality management association and all and on behalf of Department of Civil Engineering I medras and a Indian
International Conference and air quality management and sea Network and all the participants would like to thank you for your taking your time for giving this wonderful talk you than you very much thank you very much for having thank you I also thank thank you yeah thanks all participant joining us
Thank you bye an see you okay bye bye by