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DEPARTMENT OF DHE ENVIRONMENT — The United Kingdom NationaAli r Quality Strategy IOI 22501841567 The United Kingdom National Air Quality Strategy ae LG ae eS ee, a ANa e i ; mw UREAATION SERVICE sang: (UKS / N¥ ies i| 28 ADD 49007 : en iL e ee 4U MfiCa WN iIed d) nde eee P‘ oex seg 2 . b Wialicome Centre lor Iviedical Screed ana [| SEES SE Spar tense ans OPE ASAT SOAR Tans cette een Presented to Parliament by The Secretary of State for the Environment, the Secretary of State for Wales and the Secretary of State for Scotland by Command of Her Majesty CM 3587 March 1997 £17.85 Contents Part I Context Chapter 1: Setting the Scene Chapter 2: The International Context The Strategic Framework Chapter 3: Setting Standards and Objectives 1S Chapter 4: Achieving the Objectives 23 Implementing the Strategy Chapter 5: Business and Industry 34 Chapter 6: Transport 43 Chapter 7: Action at Local Level 58 Part IT Introduction v2 Chapter II.1: Monitoring, Review and Assessment 7 Chapter II.2: Research 82 Chapter II.3: Benzene 85 Chapter II.4: 1,3-Butadiene 94 Chapter II.5: Carbon Monoxide $9 Chapter II.6: Lead 107 Chapter II.7: Nitrogen Dioxide 113 Chapter II.8: Ozone 128 Chapter II.9: Particles 152 Chapter II.10: Sulphur Dioxide 161 Annex 1 178 Annex 2 184 Glossary 188 The United Kingdom National Air Quality Strategy Part I Chapter 1: Setting the Scene Introduction 1. This Strategy marks a watershed in the history of measures to control and improve the quality of air in the United Kingdom. It builds upon two broad trends, which have come together to create the platform for the formulation of a more strategic and integrated approach to air quality issues. The first is the elaboration of the principles of sustainable development. In particular, the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development at Rio de Janeiro in 1992 (“the Earth Summit”), has led decision-makers to try to break down the barriers between environmental and developmental policy-making, and to develop strategic, objective-led means of managing change over the long term. The second is progress in recent years at national, European and international level, in our understanding of air pollution and in the development of new instruments to tackle it. This has come to a point where a more comprehensive framework for management of air quality is both necessary and possible. Air quality and 2. Air quality is an issue of sustainability, as we strive to create an sustainability environment in which individuals and communities can thrive. Essential to that process is the continued improvement of the external conditions which affect human health. Agenda 21, the central text on sustainable development to come out of the Rio Earth Summit, dedicates one of its chapters to “Protecting and Promoting Human Health”. The overall objective of that chapter is “to minimize hazards and maintain the environment to a degree that human health and safety is not impaired or endangered and yet encourage development to proceed”. Air quality is identified as a key element in the reduction of health risks from environmental pollution and hazards. 3. There is an increasing understanding of what those risks to health are, and the kind of benefits to be gained from making the air cleaner. Fortunately the UK has moved on from the days when, as in 1952, air pollution could cause an estimated 4000 additional deaths of sick and mainly elderly people in just a few days - an effect comparable with that of a major influenza epidemic. Nevertheless, some recent statistical analyses suggest that, even at the substantially lower levels of airborne pollution we experience today, there are associations with premature mortality, chronic illness and discomfort for sensitive groups. On the other hand, there is no evidence that healthy individuals are likely to experience acute effects at typical UK air pollution levels. Steps to improve the quality of air will diminish any remaining risks, and provide a more pleasant living and working environment for us all. 4. This is not to say that air quality is solely an issue of human health; we know that air pollution can degrade both the natural and the man-made environment - forests, lakes, crops, wildlife, buildings and other materials can all suffer significant damage from high levels of airborne pollutants. Again, cleaner air will help to reduce the likelihood of any such damage and its economic costs. If we are genuinely “not to cheat on our children” our legacy to them must include acceptably clean air. 5. There are also close links between air quality issues and climate change. Some are areas of synergy, for example ozone is a greenhouse gas, so controlling it and its precursors can also contribute to our commitments to tackle climate change as can controls over emissions of nitrogen oxides from aircraft. However, there may also be areas of conflict, page 4 Chapter 1: Setting the Scene for example where action to control vehicle emissions may reduce fuel efficiency. Sustainability requires the identification of policies which maximise the synergy and which strike a careful balance between the possible conflicts. 6. This was reflected in the UK’s Sustainable Development Strategy. In acknowledging that good air quality was essential for human health and the well-being of the environment as a whole, it identified one of the key issues for sustainability as “to manage local air quality, especially in urban areas, and in particular to ensure that all relevant sectors - industry, transport, local authorities and the general public - contribute.” All of these, as well as central government and the new Environment Agencies, have a part to play to secure a sustained improvement in air quality which in turn can bring about a lasting improvement in the quality of life. Developments in air 7. Meanwhile, the conditions for strategic, objective-led management of quality air quality are coming into place. More extensive monitoring data and understanding and information on air pollution in the UK is becoming available. This is being instruments matched by greater scientific understanding of its origins and effects, and increasing attention to the economic analysis of the associated costs and benefits. This progress has coincided with, and informed, the development of a wider range of instruments intended to manage air pollution. Each of the main sectors, which are sources of emissions, has been brought within a regulatory framework. Substantial reductions in emissions of a wide range of pollutants have already been achieved: @ the task of controlling emissions from domestic sources is now well towards completion; M@ a framework for managing and reducing industrial emissions is now in operation under the Environmental Protection Act 1990 (EPA 90), operated by both the new Environment Agencies and local authorities; and M policies adopted by the Government in the last few years have marked the development of a more comprehensive approach to the control and improvement of vehicle emissions. 8. At a European level the history of air pollution control measures, which stretches back more than twenty years, is now being consolidated into a broad European framework for the management of air pollution for the next decade and beyond. Over the last decade, a framework of international treaties has been developed to cover most of the transboundary pollutants that affect the UK. 9. Central to the further development of air quality policy, both in this Strategy and in other fora, is an understanding of the relationship between the different levels at which air pollution is generated and, in consequence, controlled. Many of the pollution control strategies developed in the late nineteen seventies and eighties were primarily directed at tackling long-range transboundary pollution, and acid rain in particular. As described in greater detail in the following chapter, this meant that instruments were developed to meet national emission reduction targets. However, emerging evidence that there remained problems associated with personal exposure to ambient concentrations of air pollution led to a new interest in local air quality and local sources of pollution. page 5 Chapter 1: Setting the Scene 10. The relationship between transboundary and local air pollution is difficult to specify. For those pollutants, such as sulphur dioxide (SO) and nitrogen oxides (NO,), which were initially controlled for their transboundary effects, the abatement of emissions from major sources has contributed to the achievement of improved local air quality. The contribution of transboundary sources to local pollution is, for these and other pollutants such as particles, potentially significant. In the case of ozone, the contribution of transboundary sources to ambient levels is so great as to necessitate internationally coordinated action for the control of its precursors. With the continued abatement, however, of these sources, the management of local air quality needs also to look at the contribution made by local sources, which is in many cases dominant, particularly during episodes of elevated pollution levels. The Air Quality 11. While great progress has been made, and continues to be made, in the Strategy improvement of air quality, important long and medium term goals remain, which will lead to significant, further reductions in the number and extent of episodes of poor air quality, both in summer and in winter. These goals are to be achieved with due regard to the need to balance, as far as knowledge allows, any costs and the ensuing benefits. 12. Many of these issues have already been foreshadowed in the Government discussion documents Improving Air Quality and Air Quality: Meeting the Challenge. \n the light of the debate stimulated by those discussion documents, and in the light of the developments described above, the Government concluded that it should formulate, within a general strategy, its standards, objectives and targets for the improvement of air quality, the main policies which currently reflect them, and the process by which, over reasonable planning horizons, the Government aims to move towards those targets. Accordingly, among the provisions included in the Environment Bill was the management and improvement of air quality in the United Kingdom. The Bill received Royal Assent in 1995. 13. The Environment Act 1995 also laid the foundations for a nationwide system of local air quality management, in which local authorities are obliged to review and assess the quality of air in their areas, and to take action where air quality standards or objectives are breached or at risk of being breached. Such standards or objectives are to be defined by means of regulation. Structure and Scope 14. This document provides the Strategy required under that legislation. of the Strategy It is set firmly within the established UK approach to air quality policy, following an effects-based approach. That approach is founded on the scientific assessment of the impacts of pollution; the derivation of the standards which embody a high degree of protection of human health, and implementation through proportionate, targeted action which weighs the expected benefits against the associated costs. The fundamental principles underlying the Government's approach to air quality policy are set out in Box 1.A. 15. Part ll of the Strategy contains, for eight priority pollutants: a summary of the assessment undertaken by the Government's medical and scientific advisérs of the standard appropriate for the protection of health; an assessment of the current prevalence of the pollutant within ambient air; page 6 Chapter 1: Setting the Scene and the improvement which can be expected from policies and technologies in place or planned; and, where necessary, a review of what more needs to be done to secure the standard and the practicality of doing it. These assessments provide the basis, in Part | Chapters 2-7, for elaboration of the Government's Air Quality Strategy: its objectives; the standards on which they are based; the respective roles of central and local government; and the contribution that can be made by the industrial and transport sectors of the economy and by the community. 16. Following these principles, and in line with the framework devised in the Environment Act 1995, the Strategy is tightly targeted on the management of ambient air quality. Therefore, it is not designed to encompass issues which are related - other indicators of environmental quality such as water, soil or noise pollution, for example, or environmental problems to which emissions to air may contribute, such as the deposition of airborne pollutants or eutrophication. The chapter on the international context for the Strategy does, however, give some coverage to policies on acidification. 17. Neither occupational exposure nor indoor air quality are included in the scope of this Strategy. The total personal exposure of an individual to an air pollutant may be significantly influenced by indoor exposure. A substantial body of research to investigate exposure to air pollutants in the indoor, non-occupational environment is being supported by the Department of the Environment. 18. Whilst this Strategy has been drafted in United Kingdom terms and outlines a unified approach, there will be circumstances where the different arrangements applicable in Northern Ireland may require that a different approach is adopted. For example, Northern Ireland has its own environmental legislative code and the Environment Act 1995, which sets out the legislative structure for the Strategy, does not apply. Corresponding legislation will be prepared for Northern Ireland under the Order in Council procedure. Conclusion 19. The aim of this Strategy is to map out, as far as possible, the future of ambient air quality policy in the United Kingdom at least until the year 2005. A particular purpose is to ensure that all those who contribute to air pollution, or are affected by it, or have a part to play in its abatement, can identify both what is statutorily required from them and what further contribution they can voluntarily make in as efficient a manner as possible. Vital to this process is the notion that the Strategy must be evolutionary rather than a rigid structure determined by the conditions pertaining at the present time. The Act requires that the Secretary of State’s policies on air quality are regularly reviewed, and it is the Government's intention to initiate the first review of this Strategy in 1999. Preparation for this first review will be assisted by the establishment of an Air Quality Forum, which will bring together representatives of all interests to ensure that the implementation of current policies is carefully monitored and reviewed, and that future priorities can be identified. page 7 Chapter 1: Setting the Scene Box 1.A: The UK Government believes that air quality policy should in general Principles of Air be based on the following principles: Quality Policy Sustainability It is a fundamental precept that policy should seek to drive technologies, behaviour and use of resources towards modes of operation which are sustainable in the long term. Effects-based approach The touchstone for action should be environmental objectives, expressed in terms of environmental quality. This allows areas to be treated proportionately to their particular risk of damage using the package of measures most suitable for them to achieve the agreed objectives. Effects include those on human health as well as on the natural and man-made environments. Risk assessment Quality objectives must be set on an understanding of the relationship between exposure to levels of pollution and their effects. This enables judgement to be made on critical loads and critical levels' and can inform decisions where there are no critical thresholds (i.e. where effects occur at all loads or levels) or where the costs of meeting critical levels are higher than the benefits. Sound science Risk assessment must be based on internationally robust scientific evidence, published and peer reviewed. Proportionality Where the case for action is adequately made, the measures concerned should be proportionate to their objectives, in the light of an assessment of the costs and benefits involved. Measures should provide for flexibility in implementing and enforcing international obligations. Polluter pays principle The cost of measures decided by authorities to ensure that the environment is in an acceptable state should be reflected in the cost of goods and services which cause pollution in production and/or consumption. Precautionary Where there are significant risks of damage to the environment, the principle Government will be prepared to take precautionary action to limit the use of potentially dangerous materials or the spread of potentially dangerous pollutants, even where scientific knowledge is not conclusive, if the balance of likely costs and benefits justifies it. INTERNATIONAL Subsidiarity Action should only be taken at EC level where a Community objective cannot sufficiently be achieved by member states, taking account in particular of transnational aspects. Effective Ratification of UNECE Protocols should be followed by national International action plans, where appropriate, and reports to the relevant supervisory Monitoring and body. The implementation of EC legislation should be rigorously Enforcement monitored and enforced across the Community. The Protocol to the 1979 UNECE (UN Economic Council for Europe) Convention on Long-Range Transboundary Air Pollution on the Further Reduction of Sulphur Emissions, 1994 gives the following definitions: Critical loads - a quantitative estimate of exposure to one or more pollutants below which significant harmful effects on sensitive elements of the environment do not occur, according to present knowledge; Critical levels - the concentrations of pollutants in the atmosphere above which direct adverse effects on receptors such as plants, ecosystems or materials may occur, according to present knowledge. F 7 page 8