Air pollution: WHO significantly tightens its standards
THE ESSENTIAL
Air pollution is responsible for around 7 million premature deaths every year. A scourge which the World Health Organization (WHO) decided to tackle on Wednesday. For the first time in 16 years, it has updated its reference thresholds by setting more restrictive limits for the main air pollutants, including suspended particles.
Air pollution, as harmful as tobacco or poor diet
The WHO decision is based on new data, after the UN institution reviewed more than 500 scientific publications. These show “how much air pollution affects all parts of the body – from the brain to the growing baby in its mother’s womb, and this at even lower concentrations than those previously observed”, underlined the director. WHO General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus at a press conference.
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— HobbesGoblin Mon May 09 17:00:12 +0000 2016
Air pollution has become the “main environmental threat to human health”, causing lung cancer, stroke, heart attack or even chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases (broncho-pneumopathies, asthma, etc.). Air pollution is now considered as a health risk factor as important as smoking or poor diet.
Fine particles and nitrogen dioxide in the viewfinder
The WHO has not done in half measures. The UN institution has decided to significantly tighten its standards. Thus, the exposure thresholds for the two most dangerous pollutants, fine particles and nitrogen dioxide, are divided by two and four respectively. The first goes from 10 micrograms (µg) per cubic meter to 5 µg/m 3 and the second from 40 to 10 µg/m 3 .
These standards concern almost the entire planet, since more than 90% of the world's population lives in areas exceeding the thresholds set in 2005. With the new restrictions on fine particles, only Iceland falls into the nails (4.7 µg /m³ as an annual average). France is far from it, with 10.6 µg/m³. At the bottom of the ranking, we find India, which has an average concentration of fine particles that is fourteen times higher than the new WHO recommendations (70 µg/m³).
No legal constraint
These thresholds are not accompanied by binding legal measures. They are intended to be “a tool based on factual data allowing decision-makers to guide their legislation and their policies at the international, national or local level”, specified Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. After these announcements, the European Commission decided to meet this Thursday, September 23 to examine the new recommendations. The ongoing process of revising the air quality directives should lead to a legislative proposal in the third quarter of 2022.
According to the WHO, compliance with the new thresholds would make it possible to avoid nearly 80% of deaths linked in particular to fine particles. “Air pollution is a threat to health in all countries, but it hits the populations of low- and middle-income countries the most,” recalled the Director General of the WHO. Compliance with these measures would also be beneficial for the climate, since the main sources of air pollution are also those that emit the most greenhouse gases.
