Emission Impossible Ltd

We have made some minor edits to the HAPINZ Exposure Model.

Corrections were made to the location of five industries in Auckland.  This has changed the totals for five census area units (CAUs) in this model and in the Health Effects Model.

The correction does not affect the overall numbers calculated in the Health Effects Model for urban areas, territorial local authorities (TLAs), regions or the nation.  Full details are in comment boxes in both models on the HAPINZ website (www.hapinz.org.nz).

The Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) has released a discussion document proposing a range of changes to the Engine Fuels Specifications Regulations 2011.  The regulations set out minimum standards for the performance of fuel and limit components that are harmful to the environment and public health.  An MBIE press release has been issued and can be found here: http://www.mbie.govt.nz/about/whats-happening/news/2015/proposed-fuel-changes-reduce-emissions-improve-health-outcomes.

The discussion document alongside supporting consultant reports and models are available at: http://www.mbie.govt.nz/info-services/sectors-industries/energy/liquid-fuel-market/reviewing-aspects-of-the-engine-fuel-specifications-regulations-2011.

MBIE invites all interested stakeholders to provide submissions by 30 October 2015.  Submissions should be emailed to fuelspecs@mbie.govt.nz.

More than 3 million people a year are killed prematurely by outdoor air pollution, according to a landmark new study, more than malaria and HIV/Aids combined.

Wood and coal burning for heating homes and cooking is the biggest cause, especially in Asia, but the research reveals a remarkably heavy toll from farming emissions in Europe and the US, where it is the leading cause of deaths.

But the research found that agricultural emissions of ammonia had a “remarkable” impact, according to Professor Jos Lelieveld, at the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry in Germany, who led the research. A fifth of all global deaths resulted from these emissions, which come mainly from cattle, chickens and pigs and from the over-use of fertiliser.

The ammonia reacts with fumes from traffic and industry to produce tiny particles and is the largest cause of air pollution deaths in the eastern US, Japan and in Europe. “For London, agriculture is the main source,” said Lelieveld. Across the UK, 48% of the premature deaths were ultimately the result of agricultural pollution.

Currently it is assumed that all particulates are equally toxic. But if those from fuel burning are more toxic, as some scientists suspect, the proportion of premature deaths attributable to farming emissions would be lower. Even so, Professor Michael Jerrett, environmental health expert at the University of California said “the finding is highly valuable … because agriculture has generally not been seen as a major source of air pollution or premature death, and because it suggests that much more attention needs to be paid to agricultural sources, by both scientists and policymakers.”

Source: The Guardian (abridged)

Reducing global particulate matter pollution could save millions of lives

Globally, more than 3.2 million premature deaths per year are attributed to exposure to ambient fine particulate matter (PM_2.5). A new study estimates that 2.1 million premature deaths could be avoided if countries achieved the WHO guideline for PM_2.5. Even meeting their closest WHO interim concentration targets could avoid 750 000 (23%) deaths attributed to PM_2.5 per year.

The World Health Organization has issued a specific guideline value for ambient PM_2.5, set at 10 ug/m³ as an annual average. It has further given interim targets concentrations for PM_2.5 at 35, 25, 15 ug/m³, target values that can be used by governments to approach the final guideline value of 10 ug/m³ in a stepwise manner.

The study found that limiting PM_2.5 concentrations to WHO interim target levels 35, 25, 15, or 10 µg/m³, could avoid approximately 0.39, 0.73, 1.4, and 2.1 million annual premature deaths, respectively. Another strategy, called ‘next target’ (a country at 27 µg/m³ would try to get down to its closest lower target of 25 µg/m³, for example) could save approximately 750 000 lives globally.

The study also revealed the impact of demographic factors and the (non-linear) exposure-response function on PM_2.5 mortality. Highly polluted areas require a greater reduction of PM_2.5 than less polluted areas to achieve the same decrease in attributed mortality. In the most highly polluted areas, such as India and China, a 50% reduction in mortality would require a 68% reduction of PM_2.5. Conversely, a 50% mortality reduction in less polluted areas, such as Europe and North America, could be achieved through a reduction of just 25% of PM_2.5.

The researchers stress that initial improvements to ambient PM_2.5 concentrations must be worked into long-term mitigation strategies, which will differ greatly between more or less polluted areas. Population age structure should also be taken into account when planning mitigation policies, they say. In fact, if the world met the World Health Organization 10 µg/m³ target, nearly 70% of the total mortality avoided would be concentrated in East Asia and India because these areas are densely populated and currently experience high PM levels. Importantly, the researchers say there is also high potential for reducing mortality in less polluted areas as well. Furthermore, there could also be positive impacts on climate change because PM_2.5 mitigation may also reduce the emission of other accompanying pollutants, such as black carbon.

Source: Apte, J. S., Marshall, J. D., Cohen, A. J. & Brauer, M. (2015). Addressing Global Mortality from Ambient PM_2.5. Environmental Science & Technology 49(13): 8057-8066. DOI:10.1021/acs.est.5b01236.

Contact: JSApte@utexas.edu

13 August 2015

In addition to the release of national guidelines for the implementation of the National Policy Statement on Freshwater Management, the Government announced that next year they will commence consultation on new national environmental standards for air quality and contaminated soils.  This is noted as following on from a report from the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment recommending improvements in particulate pollution regulation.

Source: beehive.govt.nz

Google Street View cars are not just recording photos of the road, but are taking snapshots of the air quality around them too. Some of Google’s vehicles have been fitted air quality detectors produced by Aclima, a company that creates networks of environmental sensors. The sensors enable the vehicles to gather information on carbon dioxide, methane, black carbon, particulate matter as well as other pollutants on a block by block basis.

The initial trial was run in Denver as part of a study conducted by NASA and the EPA which focused on improving the collection of air quality data. The partnership hopes that the tests will lead to a better understanding of urban air quality. Some of the findings from this study can be found on Aclima’s website.

Source: The Verge

15 JULY 2015 ¦ LONDON

Nearly 9,500 people die early each year in London due to long-term exposure to air pollution, more than twice as many as previously thought, according to new research.

The premature deaths are due to two key pollutants, fine particulates known as PM2.5 and the toxic gas nitrogen dioxide (NO2), according to a study carried out by researchers at King’s College London.

The study – which was commissioned by the Greater London Authority and Transport for London – is believed to be the first by any city in the world to attempt to quantify how many people are being harmed by NO2. The gas is largely created by diesel cars, lorries and buses, and affects lung capacity and growth.

London, Birmingham, and Leeds are among the UK cities that have been in breach of EU safety limits on NO2 for five years, prompting legal action that led to a supreme court ruling in April that the government must publish a clean-up plan by the end of the year.

Previous research attributed 4,267 annual premature deaths to PM2.5 in 2008, based on 2006 levels of the particulates. Subsequent falls in those particulates and a change in methodology that excludes natural sources of the pollutant sees that figure fall to 3,537 for 2010 levels of PM2.5 in the new study.

However that fall is more than cancelled out by the addition of an estimated 5,879 deaths from NO2 each year, bringing the total early deaths from both pollutants in 2010 to 9,416.

Although the report found that a larger proportion of deaths caused by PM2.5 were from particulates that originated outside the city than within it, it found that most of the deaths linked to NO2 were because of NO2 emissions from diesel vehicles and other sources within the capital.

The study also looked at the impact of short-term exposure to PM2.5s and NO2 during high pollution episodes, such as the one that affected much of England in April, and found that 2,411 hospital admissions for respiratory problems a year could be blamed on the pollutants.

The government’s scientific advisers on the issue, the committee on the medical effects of air pollutants, are expected to conclude later this year that across Britain up to 60,000 early deaths annually can be attributed to the two pollutants, because NO2 will be factored in for the first time. The figure would represent a doubling on the current 29,000 from PM2.5, and would put air pollution much closer to smoking, which kills around 100,000 people a year.

The mayor launched a consultation today on measures for boroughs to tackle pollution hotspots. All but two boroughs, Bromley and Sutton, failed to meet EU limits on NO2 in 2013, the latest year for which data is available.

TfL announced on Wednesday that two bus routes, the 507 and 521, will be run by 51 100% electric buses from next year, which do not have any tailpipe emissions. The first fully electric double decker bus will enter service in October, Johnson said last month.

[Source: The Guardian (abridged)]

For a copy of the full Kings College report please email or call Louise

26 MAY 2015 ¦ GENEVA

Delegates at the World Health Assembly adopted a resolution to address the health impacts of air pollution – the world’s largest single environmental health risk.  Every year 4.3 million deaths occur from exposure to indoor air pollution and 3.7 million deaths are attributable to outdoor air pollution.  This was the first time the Health Assembly had debated the topic.

The resolution highlights the key role national health authorities need to play in raising awareness about the potential to save lives and reduce health costs, if air pollution is addressed effectively.  It also stresses the need for strong cooperation between different sectors and integration of health concerns into all national, regional and local air pollution-related policies.  It urges Member States to develop air quality monitoring systems and health registries to improve surveillance for all illnesses related to air pollution; promote clean cooking, heating and lighting technologies and fuels; and strengthen international transfer of expertise, technologies and scientific data in the field of air pollution.

The resolution asks the WHO Secretariat to strengthen its technical capacities to support Member States in taking action on air pollution.  This includes further building capacity to: implement the “WHO air quality guidelines” and “WHO indoor air quality guidelines; conduct cost-benefit assessment of mitigation measures; and advance research into air pollution’s health effects and effectiveness.  At the Sixty-ninth World Health Assembly, WHO will propose a road map for an enhanced global response by the health sector that reduces the adverse health effects of air pollution.

Draft text of resolution

The first ever study of the economic cost of air pollution in the WHO Europen Region was published on Tuesday 28 April.  The study covers 53 countries, from Albania to Uzbekistan and it estimates a staggering US$ 1.6 trillion is the economic cost of the approximate 600 000 premature deaths and of the diseases caused by air pollution in 2010. The amount is nearly equivalent to one tenth of the gross domestic product (GDP) of the entire European Union in 2013.

The study uses the methodology applied in a 2014 report by OECD and makes the calculations based on the most recent economic estimates of the health impacts of air pollution.  The economic value of deaths and diseases due to air pollution – US$1 600 000 000 000 – corresponds to the amount societies are willing to pay to avoid these deaths and diseases with necessary interventions. In these calculations, a value is attached to each death and disease, independent of the age of the person and which varies according to the national economic context.

Over 90% of citizens in the Region are exposed to annual levels of outdoor fine particulate matter that are above WHO’s air quality guidelines. This accounted for 482 000 premature deaths in 2012 from heart and respiratory diseases, blood vessel conditions and strokes, and lung cancer. In the same year, indoor air pollution resulted in an additional 117 200 premature deaths, five times more in low- and middle-income countries than in high-income countries.

“Reducing air pollution has become a top political priority. Air quality will be a key theme at the next Environment for Europe Ministerial Conference in Georgia in 2016”, says Mr Christian Friis Bach, Executive Secretary of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE). “Fifty-one countries are today finding joint solutions in the framework of the UNECE Convention on Long-range Transboundary Air Pollution. This work must be strengthened to reduce air pollution even further and extended to more countries and to other regions.”

Full study here: Economic cost of the health impact of air pollution in Europe: Clean air, health and wealth

Summary by country: Annex – Economic cost of deaths from air pollution (outdoor and indoor) per country, as a percentage of GDP