New air quality targetsĮxactly 70 years on from the deadly London smog, we are again on the verge of new legislation to protect people from the harms of air pollution. We can simulate future air quality changes expected from a given policy, such as specific traffic changes, and calculate the health benefits in terms of deaths and disease diagnoses avoided among a given population. We can also identify the chemical fingerprint of particles in the air to quantify these different sources. For example, our research quantifies “real-world” pollutants emitted from vehicles while being driven on Birmingham’s roads, as opposed to being tested in a laboratory that simulates driving conditions. Our work in the West Midlands is an example of how these advances can support evidence-based clean air solutions. Indoors, the optimal balance between ventilation, energy use and heat loss is a priority for reducing air pollution, preventing respiratory infections and achieving net zero. In urban areas, burning wood can worsen local air quality. Town planning should support reducing air pollution concentrations and exposure and encourage travel on foot and by bike. Industrial emissions have fallen substantially, but those from agriculture have not: simple changes in fertilisation approaches are needed. Outdoors, the report recommends continuing electrification of transport and technical measures targeting emissions from heavy goods vehicles and car brakes and tyres wearing down (which, perhaps surprisingly, is now a bigger source of particle pollution than exhausts).Ĭar tyres are a major source of particle pollution. People there are exposed to air pollution but can do little about it individually, so society needs to act. This approach recognises that many of these are public spaces, both indoors and outdoors. The Chief Medical Officer’s report sets out a need to focus air quality improvements on the places where people live, work and study.
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The report also recognises major gaps in our knowledge, including air pollution in indoor environments. We are also able to better determine where pollutants originated, enabling targeted approaches to reducing them at source. We also now understand the relative contribution of different pollutant sources to ambient pollution, including road transport, industry and agriculture (due to ammonia emitted from manure and fertiliser). Now, 70 years on from the London smogs, we know that health harms exist even at low pollutant levels and that there is no “safe” level of PM2.5 exposure. Nelson’s Column disappears into the smog, December 1952.
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