The impact of European legislative and technology measures to reduce air pollutants on air quality, human health and climate

摘要

European air quality legislation has reduced emissions of air pollutants across Europe since the 1970s,udaffecting air quality, human health and regional climate. We used a coupled composition-climateudmodel to simulate the impacts of European air quality legislation and technology measuresudimplemented between 1970 and 2010. We contrast simulations using two emission scenarios; oneudwith actual emissions in 2010 and the other with emissions that would have occurred in 2010 in theudabsence of technological improvements and end-of-pipe treatment measures in the energy, industrialudand road transport sectors. European emissions of sulphur dioxide, black carbon (BC) and organicudcarbon in 2010 are 53%, 59% and 32% lower respectively compared to emissions that would haveudoccurred in 2010 in the absence of legislative and technology measures. These emission reductionsuddecreased simulated European annual mean concentrations of fine particulate matter(PM2.5) by 35%,udsulphate by 44%, BC by 56% and particulate organic matter by 23%. The reduction in PM2.5udconcentrations is calculated to have prevented 80 000 (37 000–116 000, at 95% confidence intervals)udpremature deaths annually across the European Union, resulting in a perceived financial benefit toudsociety of US$232 billion annually (1.4% of 2010 EU GDP). The reduction in aerosol concentrationsuddue to legislative and technology measures caused a positive change in the aerosol radiative effect atudthe top of atmosphere, reduced atmospheric absorption and also increased the amount of solarudradiation incident at the surface over Europe. We used an energy budget approximation to estimateudthat these changes in the radiative balance have increased European annual mean surface temperaturesudand precipitation by 0.45 ± 0.11 °C and by 13 ± 0.8 mm yr−1 respectively. Our results show that theudimplementation of European legislation and technological improvements to reduce the emission ofudair pollutants has improved air quality and human health over Europe, as well as having an unintendedudimpact on the regional radiative balance and climate.