Why air quality matters

During the past few days air quality has featured centre stage at both the EU environment ministerial level and also through an excellent study prepared by the EEA – the European Environment Agency.

We need to set stricter emission ceilings and ensure we have the tools to attain such levels

The main thrust of the study was that one should link science, policy and the public. The main conclusion is that although, as a result of an ever growing body of scientific evidence, demands by the public and a series of laws, Europe’s air quality has improved considerably in the last 60 years, Europe has not yet attained the air quality foreseen in its legislation or desired by its citizens.

Our official position is that the upcoming stock-taking exercise that the EU intends to conduct on its air policy should lead to the most ambitious levels matched with the right means to ensure successful realisation of the objectives through progressive, concrete, feasible and cost-effective measures. All the relevant actors and sectors must be engaged in the implementation of the measures to be adopted.

The Irish Presidency of the EU should be commended for having put air quality and the urban environment on its agenda.

The European Commission has already launched a number of public consultations open to EU citizens, professional organisations, NGOs as well as industry lobby groups, and has commissioned a number of reports on the contributions of various sectors to air quality.

These reports will be fed into the cost-benefit analysis which will be prepared together with the various proposals, including legislative texts.

From a local perspective it was interesting to note the emphasis made on airborne particulate matter (PM) since this concerns us as much as other Europeans. In fact it may even be of greater concern to us given the specificity of our location, size, area and major pollutants responsible for PM.

This goes beyond being a mere environmental issue. It is of major concern for human health.

While in my opinion all sectors are contributing negatively by exacerbating this problem, the expert advice is that a major issue on the island is the lack of scientific evidence to determine which of the sectors (traffic, power generation, shipping) and to what extent, is most responsible for the air quality that we have.

We need to establish in a more scientific manner the definite correlation between any of these factors and the air quality in local areas. In addition, the contribution of shipping emissions – something many tend to gloss over – to local air pollution needs to be adequately studied as well.

I am saying so because Malta is the most hard-hit member state by sulphur and nitrogen deposition, with shipping being responsible for 56 per cent of the sulphur deposition and 51 per cent nitrogen deposition on the island.

It still has to be seen whether the EU will start including this sector in the national contributions to the emissions ceilings. We also need to have national data about smaller combustion plants on the island.

Problems tend to arise most when pollutants such as nitrogen dioxides are emitted by a host of different sources, including road vehicles.

The contribution of transport to the total emissions of this pollutant is, according to experts, of the same order of magnitude as the contribution of power generation.

One could argue that solutions cannot be implemented overnight, but delaying the identification of the real problem areas can only make a bad situation worse.

We are determined to work together with all key stakeholders in order to achieve the desired standards.

This exercise will no doubt fail miserably if we are unable to translate air quality science into information understood by the ordinary man in the street.

We not only need to set stricter emission ceilings but also ensure that we have the ‘tools’ to attain the levels expected of us.

We also need to further build our capacity in this sector since the real-time monitoring infrastructure must go beyond the minimum requirements of the EU acquis.

Brincat.leo@gmail.com

Leo Brincat is the Minister for Sustainable Development, the Environment and
Climate Change.