Some efforts appear to be paying off.
In a new report, the European Environment Agency (EEA) says the EU’s
greenhouse gas emissions fell 3.3% in 2011 and were 18.4% below 1990
levels. That would put the EU well on its way of achieving a 20%
reduction from 1990 levels by the end of this decade.
The Eurostat statistical agency, meanwhile, reported that carbon dioxide (CO
2) emissions fell 2.1% in 2012 after declining 4.1% a year earlier.
But numbers on carbon emissions aren’t necessarily good news for air quality – the focus of the EU’s Green Week this week.
A ‘major’ environmental problem
The EU’s achievements mean little while the rest of the world still
pumps out record levels of carbon, and Europe’s methods for cutting
greenhouse gases come with side effects, including higher emissions of
nitrogen oxides (NOx), particulate matter (PM), ground-level ozone (O
3), soot and sulphur that have both short- and long-term effects on human health.
“Air pollution remains one of the major environmental problems in
Europe, affecting health and well-being of European citizens,” the EEA
says in a
new report on the impact of pollution on human health.
Air pollution was ranked as one of the top-10 risk factors for health
globally, according to a global review of the burden of diseases
published in December last year by the British medical journal
The Lancet.
According to the study, over 430,000 premature deaths and over 7
million years of healthy life were lost across Europe in 2010 from
exposure to fine particulate matter (PM
2.5), with 166,000
premature deaths in Western Europe, 95,000 deaths in Central Europe, and
169,000 deaths in Eastern Europe, which includes Russia.
“Everyday exposure to outside air pollution in Europe is now
recognised as one of the big factors affecting our health,” said Anne
Stauffer, deputy director of Health and Environment Alliance
(HEAL). “For the first time, the Global Burden of Disease assessment has
ranked an environmental factor among the more widely discussed
‘life-style’ risk factors, such as tobacco and alcohol.”
Trade offs
Markus Amann, an expert on air pollution and greenhouse gases, said
European policies show there are trade-offs in reducing greenhouse
gases. “Ill-designed climate policies can result in higher particulate
matter emissions,” he told a recent air quality conference in Brussels.
Amann, who works at the International Institute for Applied Systems
Analysis in Austria, mentioned support for diesel engines as a case in
point.
While diesel engines were promoted in Europe for their lower carbon
emissions, they are blamed for stubbornly high levels of gases like
nitrogen oxides (NOx) that contribute to ozone and acid raid.
Technological advances using advanced selective catalytic reduction
(SCR) of NOx in vehicles, industrial smokestacks and ships are now
required or are being phased in under EU and international standards to
help deal with the problem. The technology can cut NOx emissions by as
much as 90%, yet because older vehicles and some industrial plants are
exempt, it could be years before the benefits of these technologies are
realised.
Another example are biofuels and biomass, which have been promoted
though European policies, including the Renewable Energy Directive, as
part of the bloc’s carbon-cutting efforts. Yet their impact is far from
benign.
Spurred by a combination of concerns over high food prices and doubts
about the climate benefits of plant-based vehicle fuels, the European
Commission last October made a
U-turn on its policies that set targets to encourage the use of ethanol and biodiesel.
Where there’s smoke, there’s pollution
Mark Lawrence, the scientific director of the Institute for Advanced
Sustainability Studies (IASS) in the German city of Potsdam, says
biomass is considered green and advertised as such.
“If you think about the grey, brown and black smoke plumes above
chimneys, you will see that this is not so green,” Lawrence told the
science conference co-sponsored by his institute.
“But probably nobody I’ve talked to in the public is aware of the
pollution that comes out of their chimneys. They are aware of the smoke
that comes out, but they think it’s something that is just an irritant
to their neighbours.”
Wood stoves are considered climate friendly because they emit
relatively little carbon, but they contribute to air quality problems
because the produce black carbon – an ingredient of soot – and NOx,
which health officials say contribute to respiratory and cardiovascular
problems, and environmental campaigners say contribute to ozone and
affects plants and wildlife when they mix with rain to produce acidic
deposits.
Lawrence was among the speakers at the conference on air quality and
climate change, held on 21 May in Brussels, who pointed to the often
divergent policies where efforts to combat climate change without
considering the effect on air quality.
“If the policies are enforced, I think they are adequate to meet the
limit values. With the human health concerns, science tells us that
there are no thresholds, so they benefit from reducing it to very low
concentrations.”
Scandinavian countries in general have been leaders in reducing CO
2
emissions, and in using biomass for heating and energy, but they also
exceed the Air Quality Directive’s annual mean value of NOx, which is 30
micrograms per cubic metre.
NOx emissions decline
Overall, NOx emissions
have fallen since the 1990s,
though at a much slower pace than other leading pollutants. When
exposed to solar radiation, NOx reacts with other chemicals and gases to
form ozone, which is harmful to humans and ecosystems and acts as a
greenhouse gas. It also mixes with rain and is carried through the air,
affecting areas well beyond its source of emission.
Health and environmental experts point to another culprit in NOx and
soot pollution: biomass, or the use of wood and plant waste for home and
water heating. Figures show that about half of the EU’s renewable
energy targets are set to be achieved through the use of biomass.
Wood stoves, which are billed as a renewable energy and have grown in
popularity across Scandinavia and in Central Europe, produce soot and
high levels of NOx, black carbon – fine particulates that create soot -
that are culprits in ground-level pollution and acid rain. Black carbon
also contributes to climate change.
Experts at the Brussels conference said more effort needs to be put
into coordinating climate and pollution policies to avoid the policies
that address one problem but may create another.
IEA sees stalled progress
But Europe’s climate and pollution efforts, no matter how divergent,
still put it ahead of other regions of the globe. The International
Energy Agency
reported recently that CO
2 emissions have changed little since 1990, despite regulatory efforts and the rise in renewable energy production.
“The drive to clean up the world’s energy system has stalled,” IEA
Executive Director Maria van der Hoeven said when the Paris-based
organisation released its
clean energy monitoring report.
“Despite much talk by world leaders, and despite a boom in renewable
energy over the last decade, the average unit of energy produced today
is basically as dirty as it was 20 years ago.”
“As world temperatures creep higher due to ever-increasing emissions
of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide – two thirds of which come from
the energy sector – the overall lack of progress should serve as a
wake-up call,” van der Hoeven said.
“We cannot afford another 20 years of listlessness. We need a rapid
expansion in low-carbon energy technologies if we are to avoid a
potentially catastrophic warming of the planet, but we must also
accelerate the shift away from dirtier fossil fuels.”
today..
