MM Advertorial
A breath of fresh air?
Air pollution and poor air quality presents one of the biggest environmental threats to public health in the world today, with the World Health Organization (WHO) recently estimating that, globally, some three million deaths a year are linked to exposure to outdoor air pollution.
Also, in their most recent report on air quality, the European Environment Agency have estimated a figure of 520,400 premature deaths across the wider EU every year from exposure to air pollution, which is more than ten times the lives lost due to road accidents.
Challenges Ireland has relatively good air quality compared to the rest of Europe, however maintaining our standard of air quality is a growing challenge. Overcoming this challenge is taking on an increased importance, with this increased understanding of the links between poor air quality and human health. The European Environment Agency have estimated a figure of 1,510 premature deaths in Ireland in 2014 directly attributable to air quality, with the predominant culprit being fine particulate matter (PM2.5) from the use of solid fuels such as wood, coal and peat for home heating. In fact, it is becoming clear that there is no safe level of air pollution: a position that is held by the WHO and is reflected in their much stricter (than EU limit values) air quality guideline values. The clear benefits in terms of health improvements of reducing the people’s exposure to poor air quality is also supported by significant economic savings in doing so, highlighted recently by The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).
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Solutions Our implementation of the new Ambient Air Quality Monitoring Programme (AAMP) will be key to tackling the issues surrounding air quality in Ireland. The two key sectors that impact the most on air quality in Ireland are home heating and transport. We will seek to address these key issues by firstly fully informing the public on the status of air quality in Ireland, achieved through an expansion of the monitoring network with a greater emphasis on provision of real-time particulate matter levels. Along with this network expansion, we will implement a programme of citizen engagement which will be used to highlight the links between air quality, health and the actions or clean air choices that can be taken by the public to directly impact and improve their local air quality. Namely, these are: • Any shift from the burning of solid fuel to cleaner, more energy-efficient methods of
home heating, which will result in cleaner air quality for the consumer, their family and neighbours, with a resultant improvement in their health.
• A transition in our modes of transport away from the use of the private diesel and petrol-powered motor cars to alternative modes of transport such as walking, cycling and forms of transport that are environmentally friendly and sustainable, such as electric motor-powered vehicles. This is especially important in our at-risk urban environments. To incentivise and compliment these
behavioural changes in the public, it is imperative that Ireland adopts policy solutions that can support the public’s cleaner air choices and to marry the twin issues of ambient air quality and climate change mitigation, with which the government’s ‘Clean Air Strategy’ (due for publication shortly), will provide guidance.
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