EEA report shows improvement in air quality over the past decade

In November, the European Environment Agency (EEA) launched its yearly Air Quality Report for 2020. The report is the latest of the Agency's annual assessments of the status, impacts and trends in air quality in Europe. Even if much remains to be done, the report shows that the transport sector has positively contributed to a decline in harmful pollutants and improved air quality in the last decade.

The best performing countries have been Estonia, Finland, Iceland and Ireland, which met the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) stricter air quality guidelines for particulate matter concentrations. On the other hand, six EU Member States are still exceeding the EU’s higher limit value for fine particulate matter (PM 2.5). This demonstrates that while some countries are still struggling to meet the EU's less stringent targets, some have managed to reduce air pollution to the stricter levels proposed by WHO. The discrepancy between the EU's standards and WHO guidelines should be addressed with the revision of the EU's standards under the Commission's new 'Zero Pollution Action Plan'.

The main finding from the report is that air quality has improved across the continent, while it singled out the transport sector as spearheading this effort. Since 2000, emissions of key air pollutants have declined considerably, even if this has coincided with growing demands for mobility and the associated increase in the sector’s greenhouse gas emissions.

However, EEA's report indicates that exposure to fine particulate matter still led to about 417,000 premature deaths in 41 European countries in 2018. The upside is that, in comparison to numbers from 2009, around 60,000 fewer people died prematurely due to fine particulate matter pollution.

As stated by Hans Bruyninckx, EEA Executive Director, “The EEA’s data prove that investing in better air quality is an investment for better health and productivity for all Europeans. Policies and actions that are consistent with Europe’s zero pollution ambition, lead to longer and healthier lives and more resilient societies.”

The European Commissioner for Environment, Oceans and Fisheries, Virginijus Sinkevičius, was optimistic, but mindful of the work that remains to be done: “It is good news that air quality is improving thanks to the environmental and climate policies that we have been implementing. But we can’t ignore the downside – the number of premature deaths in Europe due to air pollution is still far too high. With the European Green Deal, we have set ourselves an ambition of reducing all kinds of pollution to zero.”.

The 'Air Quality in Europe' report provides important information for policy development and implementation in the domain of air quality across Europe. The European Commission has published a roadmap for the EU Action Plan Towards a Zero Pollution Ambition, as a part of the European Green Deal.

Article first published first at Intelligent Transport Systems on 26 November 2020