Air quality and particulates: extra oxygen for debate

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Opinion

Breathe. We all have to. And we know it's vital. But that dirty air costs us all several healthy years of life, we don't give enough thought to that. We Belgians, meanwhile, are among the most diligent waste sorters in Europe. And are rightly outraged by the PFOS scandal and other heavy pollution of soil and water. But we forget that in the meantime we are also turning our air into a rubbish dump.

Particulate matter, the silent killer

Over 5 million litres of air ... That's how much an average adult breathes in (and out) per year! Children breathe a little less air at a time, but they breathe more per minute. For babies, this is even double. So they are especially susceptible to the harmful effects of dirty air. And the fact that all those billions of litres of air are not equally clean everywhere is demonstrated once again by the latest annual assessment by the European Environment Agency (EEA). Which states that exposure to fine dust caused around 417 000 premature deaths in 41 European countries in 2018. For Belgium, the EEA estimates the number of premature deaths at 8340 (for 2014). This puts the number of life years lost at 86 000, an average loss of 7.5 months per Belgian.

Air quality figures

Of course, not everyone loses so many months of their life due to fine dust. Many will lose nothing, others many years. Research generally shows that fine dust is the biggest environmental risk worldwide when we consider all causes of death and known risks together (Wouter Lefebvre, Our Air, p. 123). Environmental risks are those risks that are not innate or not largely caused by the person. Moreover, the effects are greatest among vulnerable groups, such as young children, the elderly and people with lung diseases.

Soot particles found in foetuses

European particulate monitor

The EEA published its new particulate matter monitor for 323 European cities on 17 June. And there everyone can see how good or, even more often, how bad European air quality is. The monitor collects the average measured fine dust concentrations of the past two years. It shows that 39% of cities have good air quality. So more than half are failing in terms of air quality. Not exactly a result that brings a sigh of relief.

The EEA uses the World Health Organisation (WHO) standards. 'Good' therefore means that the values are below the threshold of 10 micrograms of particulate matter per cubic metre of air (10 μg/m³). For the WHO, only the health impact counts, so its threshold is lower than that of the European Union (25 μg/m³). In the monitor, cities with concentrations above 25 μg/m³ are labelled 'very bad'. In other words, the European limit is a political compromise whose value one wonders.

Citizens in action

It is becoming increasingly common for governments to be called to account or even condemned in court. In 2019, the Council of State already whistled back the Dutch central government for its nitrogen policy(Programma Aanpak Stikstof). In France, some NGOs, including Greenpeace and Oxfam, took the government to court in February 2021 for not following its own emission reduction plans. They too were vindicated. And in Ireland, the Friends of the Irish Environment won their case against the Irish government. In June 2021, a judge ruled against the four governments in our country for negligent climate policy. The complaint was brought by the non-profit organisation Klimaatzaak along with another 54,000 citizens.

In City of Antwerp, citizens gathered in the group 'Recht op Lucht' filed a complaint against the city council and the Flemish government. They pleaded guilty default because the city is not doing enough to tackle the harmful effects of air pollution. Their demand: a more ambitious government that protects its citizens and does not just pay the fines for exceeding air quality standards. Attention is also sharpening outside the court with the wide-spread actions of Café Filtré or Curieuzeneuzen.

The cost of dirty air

All these initiatives already indicate a growing awareness in society around the dangers of air pollution and global warming. Just a pity to note that for policymakers, our health is secondary to economic interests. They easily dare to count themselves rich and conveniently forget that environmental and air pollution also have a price tag. One that has to be paid anyway. The only question is by whom.

In Flanders, the total cost of air pollution is about €8 billion (2015 figures)! The lion's share of that concerns costs for health problems. With that amount, you can take a lot of cost-efficient measures to make our air cleaner and healthier. The problem with the cost of pollution is that these are external costs. Costs for which the polluter does not pay, but another party, often an entire society. And if measures yield revenues at all, it is often only many years after the costs have been incurred. That is why governments, which count in legislatures, show little decisiveness or opt for less efficient solutions and short-term measures.

Solutions

Particulate matter has (many) more sources than just road traffic. Industry, households and agriculture are also major sources of particulate matter and other forms of air pollution. In his book 'Our Air', Wouter Lefebvre of VITO sets out effective measures for 5 sectors: agriculture, households, transport, industry and government. Broadly speaking, it boils down to this:

an energy system that extinguishes fossil fuels;
a mobility system that replaces private cars with public transport, cycling and walking;
agriculture that drastically reduces its ammonia emissions.

Just a note: electric cars are not going to solve the particulate matter problem. In modern combustion-engine cars, only 15% of particulate emissions still come from combustion. The rest is mainly caused by wear and tear on brakes, tyres and asphalt. So the only measure that really helps is to build lighter cars (SUVs anyone?) and simply drive fewer kilometres. Perhaps some food for thought for our CO²-obsessed politicians who recently unfolded their plans for 'green' commercial vehicles with misplaced pride.

More car kilometres also mean less physical activity and more emissions, which in turn is bad for our lungs and general fitness. That in turn causes fewer healthy years of life, etc. Talk about a vicious circle. If we better plan and design our living environment with active mobility in mind, we will automatically lure people out of their cars. And in time, we will ensure that the car is no longer the Belgian's favourite mode of transport.

Investing in air quality is undoubtedly a good thing for everyone. We can all do our bit. Step by step in all areas of our daily lives. Leaving the car at home more often, conducting more vegetarian experiments or replacing the cosy open fire in winter by a hot chocolate will not reduce our quality of life. What does reduce, of course, is air pollution. And then we bring down that outrageously high figure of years of life lost a little. There is no doubt that air is literally vital. So isn't it high time we breathed clean air?

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