Citizen and environmental organizations have welcomed the agreement of the European institutions to reduce by half the maximum permitted limits of air pollution by 2030. These objectives will mean, for example, that the cities of Madrid or Barcelona will have to reduce by 50 % also the maximum annual values ??that are being recorded for the main air pollutants: nitrogen dioxide (NO2) and suspended solid particles PM10 and PM2.5.
In 2022, 80% of the population breathed air that does not meet the new legal objectives for NO2, particles and ozone.
The agreed text highlights that sampling points in cities must be expanded. Since its ratification by the European Parliament and the European Council, member states will have two years to apply the new standard, so that the new values ??will take effect in 2020.
However, in 2021, the WHO published new guidelines based on scientific evidence on pollution and health that establish targets even much lower than the current and newly established ones, of up to a quarter, to ensure that the air breathe is not toxic.
Carmen Duce, coordinator of the environmental organization, declared: “The European agreement reached to improve air quality is good progress. However, there is still much to do. “Reducing air pollution must be a priority for municipal, regional, state and European authorities.”
Although the trend towards improvement in atmospheric pollutants is clear, the premature mortality figures caused by air pollution continue to be devastating: in Europe they cause around 300,000 deaths each year, 20,000 of them in Spain, according to the European Environment Agency. Atmosphere.
One of the problems that complicate the improvement of air quality is that most Spanish municipalities with more than 50,000 inhabitants are failing to comply with their legal obligation to implement low emission zones (ZBE). Although they should have been implemented before 2023, only twenty of the 150 municipalities concerned comply with this measure, in most cases through symbolic or anecdotal ZBEs, without any practical impact on air quality.
Some cities are going backwards in relation to what they achieved in the past. This is how the dismantling of the bike lanes in Elx and Logroño are cited; the elimination of bus and bike lanes in Valladolid; the threat of elimination of the Castelló de la Plana ZBE; the withdrawal of protections in school environments in Madrid and Gijón; the review of the Protegim les Escoles program in Barcelona; reduction to its minimum expression of the ZBEs in Badalona, ??Gijón or Valladolid; elimination of traffic restrictions in Murcia; renounces pedestrian spaces in Gijón and Barcelona.
With the new directive, the maximum annual limit allowed for NO2 goes from 40 micror/m3 to 20 micror/m3 and the annual limit for PM10 goes from 40 micror/m3 to 20 micror/m3 while the maximum for PM2.5 is reduced also in half: from 20 micror/m3 to 10 micror/m3. In the case of ozone, the number of days that can exceed daily values ??is reduced (from 25 to 18).
