New Directions: Cleaning the air: Will the European Commission's clean air policy package of December 2013 deliver?

摘要

The European Commission has published its plans for development of air quality policy over the forthcoming decades (EU, 2013). These merit close examination: There are many aspects to a successful policy to improve air quality, but those which are most important are emissions standards, which place an upper limit on the emissions from a particular process or device, and ambient air quality standards which set the benchmark for acceptable air quality. Whilst enforcing tighter emissions standards will inevitably lead to some direct improvement in air quality, air quality standards work in an indirect way by generating the pressure for air quality improvement in order to achieve compliance. In its latest review of air quality policy (EU, 2013), the European Commission argues that since there are currently many breaches of air quality Limit and Target Values (which are effectively air quality standards, often with some exceedances permitted), policy should be directed at reviewing specific emission standards and meeting the current air quality Limit and Target Values rather than adopting even tighter air quality objectives as required implicitly by the World Health Organisation's Review of Evidence on Health Aspects of Air Pollution (REVIHAAP) process (WHO, 2013).