Air pollution threat to Scotland's cities

A FAILURE to meet targets to reduce air pollution is risking the lives of thousands of Scots, the Scottish Government has been warned.

A lethal pollutant, nitrogen dioxide, is being spewed out by traffic in such large quantities in four areas of the country that Scotland is in breach of levels set by the European Commission.

The pollutants have been found to reduce the life expectancy of everyone in the UK by an average of seven to eight months and in central Scotland alone 600 deaths each year are attributed to air pollution.

The Scottish Government plans next month to ask for an extra ten years to meet the targets in Glasgow city centre, and five more years for Edinburgh city centre, central Scotland and the North-east.

But WWF Scotland branded the delay "shocking" and believes the problem should be tackled using hardline measures, including congestion charging in city centres, widescale adoption of electric vehicles and use of lower-emission public transport.

In total, 82 miles of roads in Scotland exceed the pollution limits. If air quality in these areas does not improve, the government could be taken to court by the commission and risk hefty fines. Dr Dan Barlow, head of policy at WWF Scotland, said: "It is shocking that in the 21st century so many people are still being exposed to unhealthy levels of air pollution in Scotland.

"Scotland has had plenty of time to take preventative action, so it is completely unacceptable that not only are we set to breach air quality targets, but attempts are being made to delay compliance by a further decade.

"This situation is a direct result of Scotland's failure to produce a sensible strategy that adequately addresses air pollution and climate emissions from road traffic."

He added: "With air pollution already responsible for bringing forward the death of hundreds of people in Scotland, the longer we delay action to address this, the more lives will be put at risk."

The EU restricts emissions of NO2 and other pollutants because of their health impacts. High levels of air pollution are associated with respiratory illness and are estimated to cause premature death for up to 50,000 people a year in the UK.

However, across the UK there are 40 pollution hotspots where the NO2 limit values have not been met by the 2010 deadline.

WWF Scotland believes that to boost air quality, projects such as the new Forth road bridge and Aberdeen bypass must be shelved, greater incentives must be provided for take-up of electric vehicles, people should be forced to pay to park at work, low-emission vehicles should be used for public transport, low emission zones should be rolled out in the most polluted areas and road-user charging initiated.

Stan Blackley, chief executive of Friends of the Earth Scotland, agreed stringent measures were required to protect health. He said: "Scottish councils need all the help they can get to prioritise and tackle this problem.

"Of course, they're not helped by the Scottish Government's decisions to build massive road projects like the M74 northern extension in Glasgow or the Aberdeen bypass, both of which will have significant negative impacts on air pollution in cities that are already choking."

The environmental law organisation ClientEarth has issued legal proceedings against the UK government for its failure to meet air pollution targets.

Chief executive James Thornton said: "Since air quality laws were introduced, successive governments have failed to clean up the air we breathe. We cannot afford to waste any more time by ignoring this invisible killer."

A Scottish Government consultation into the plans to ask the European Commission for more time to meet the targets in the EU Ambient Air Quality Directive closed at the end of last week. The plan is due to be submitted to the European Commission in September.In the consultation document, the Scottish Government said: "The main reason why the UK has not been able to achieve full compliance with the NO2 limit is that despite the introduction of vehicles meeting increasingly stringent Euro standards, real world emissions of NOX (nitrogen oxide] from many vehicle classes have been considerably higher than anticipated.

"This, combined with an increase in the fraction of NOX emitted as NO2, has led to trends in NO2 concentrations over the last five years that are, at best, only weakly downwards."

A Scottish Government spokesman said it had supported several measures to tackle air pollution "and we're committed to continuing to do so".

He added: "We have just completed our consultation on air quality plans to ensure we meet NO2 targets. We will consider the responses received in developing the UK notification for the European Commission."