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Air Quality : there is a long road ahead

By Andrzej KamiƄski [CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)], from Wikimedia Commons

The World Health Organization (WHO) recently recalled that air pollution remains at dangerously high level in many parts of the world. In fact, nine out of ten people live in places where outdoor air pollution exceeds guidelines set by the WHO. Having said that, we should not bury our heads in the sand and ignore the serious air pollution problems we face here in Europe. The European Court of Auditors (Report 23/2018) stresses that air pollution is now the biggest environmental risk to public health in Europe. Not surprisingly, the report underlines that people who live in urban areas are particularly exposed to health problems including respiratory and cardiovascular diseases. Each year about 400,000 people die prematurely due to excessive air pollutants such as dust particles, nitrogen dioxide and ozone. The European Commission has already taken action against member states that continue to breach air quality limits. The UK, France, Germany, Italy, Hungary an Romania are especially targeted. Thus far, the results are inconclusive. It also has to be said that the authorities in charge of response to air pollution often suffer from a lack of transparency. Informations provided to the public during air pollution incidents are neither accessible to all nor completely accurate. Clearly, air pollution has not yet become a priority for the European Union. It needs to be changed, and soon. Indeed, we face a major public health problem!

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