April 27, 2016

expert reaction to ‘Air Quality’ report from the House of Commons Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee

The House of Commons Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee has produced a report into air quality in the UK which calls for action to reduce the risk of diseases caused by air pollution.

Prof. Alastair Lewis, Professor of Atmospheric Chemistry, National Centre for Atmospheric Science, University of York, said:

“The report is sensible on the whole and represents well some key issues. A major unanswered question is how will we know that low emissions and clean air zones are actually working? They are the centrepiece of government policy, but are based more on intuition rather than science. They will be potentially very disruptive for the public so their effectiveness needs testing quickly.

“This is policy that is well-intentioned but has no underpinning technical strategy to measure its effectiveness, and, unfortunately, little evidence that they work in other places. This isn’t to say it’s the wrong thing to do, but it might take a decade before ambient pollution measurements could discern the impacts. A bit like promoting diesel for the good reasons with no strategy to quickly detect their real world impacts when things go wrong.

“A secondary issue is around agriculture. The report treads very gently around the problem, which is that no government, or select committee, wants to impose tough controls on farmers. There is a large mismatch then between the highly disruptive interventions planned for the public versus what is mainly ‘friendly advice’ for farmers.”

‘Air Quality’, Fourth Report of Session 2015-16, by the House of Commons Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, published on Wednesday 27 April 2016.

Declared interests

Prof. Alastair Lewis: “Member Defra Air Quality Expert Group. Member UNEP and WMO science advisory panels. Receives funding from NERC, Defra, DECC and MOD for atmospheric pollution research. Receives funding from industry for research into analytical technology for the measurement of airborne chemicals.”