Radio România Internațional

Tag: cleaner air

  • Initiatives for Cleaner Air

    Initiatives for Cleaner Air


    Every year, over 400,000 Europeans die prematurely because of air pollution, with many more suffering from respiratory and cardiovascular ailments for the same reason. 25,000 are from Romania. Romania, alongside other countries in the EU, namely the Czech Republic, Germany, Spain, France, Italy, Hungary, Slovakia, and the UK, was recently warned on violating air pollution standards, and asked to take measures to remedy the situation. In the meantime, the Romanian Environment Ministry sent to Brussels a plan of proposals for reducing air pollution.



    Invited to Radio Romania, Dorina Mocanu, General Director of the Evaluation, Impact and Control of Pollution General Directorate, explained: “Evaluation of the air quality in Romania is done in 13 conurbations and 41 zones, in line with European directives. It is true that Romania, like many other European states, has a major problem with the high level of PM10 particles in suspension in some urban areas, the main cause being road traffic, home heating, and, less so but not insignificantly, construction sites. I want to specify that the infringement procedure was launched for three conurbations in Romania, namely Bucharest, Iasi, and Brasov, for too high a value for the PM10 index, particles in suspension, for which the Commission issued a warning in 2014.”



    In late January, upon the request of the European Commissioner for Environment, Karmenu Vella, Romania reported the stage of the measures taken by the local authorities in the three aforementioned conurbations, the timetable and the measures for the upcoming period.



    Here is Dorina Mocanu once again: “These measures can be divided into three categories: the ones having to do with road traffic and referring to traffic management, which includes the program of incentives for renewing the car fleet by scrapping old cars, the national program for creating an infrastructure for electric cars, modernizing public transportation, including shifting to electric public transportation. A second category of measures refers to residential heating measures for energy efficiency by insulating the building envelopes, by modernizing the heating system, installing heating systems that use renewable energy, replacing old heating systems with newer ones. Most of these measures are already being financed, or able to be financed, from environmental programs. And, last but not least, the third set of measures refers to green areas.”



    Greenpeace Romania is closely monitoring the situation, warning that there is a risk of fines amounting to hundreds of thousands of Euros a day. Alin Tănase, coordinator for energy campaigns with Greenpeace Romania, told Radio Romania that the most toxic substances are powders in suspension and nitrogen oxides, usually generated by cars.



    He told us what should be done to deal with this: “As far as I know, the deadline is in mid-March, when the Commission decides what states of the nine under warning will be sent to the European Court of Justice, implicitly resulting in fines. Not much has been done, which is why the Commission is threatening with fines. Because some cities have exceeded their limits for some pollution factors, they are obligated to put together plans to improve air quality. As far as we can see from the plans issued so far, I am referring to the plan in Bucharest, there are a series of measures that help more, others that help less, among them widening the boulevards — there are a few mentioned in the plan, because by this measure cars would run faster, which means that they would spend less time idling, producing less pollution. However, my opinion is that this is a back and forth measure, because if you widen the streets you encourage car traffic. In addition to this measure, there is another one that provides for several kilometers of bike paths separated from motorized traffic in the city, because a great problem we find with pollution in Bucharest is wind erosion, which stirs up the dust in areas devoid of vegetation. There are also measures of encouraging public transportation, even replacing the heavy polluters with electric means of transportation, and I am referring to electric buses.”



    In May, at the latest, Bucharest will have an Integrated Air Quality Plan, approved by the Minister of the Environment, Gratiela Gavrilescu.

  • New restrictions for cleaner air

    New restrictions for cleaner air

    Almost half a million Europeans die every year because of diseases caused by the emission of millions of tonnes of gases and particles released into the atmosphere as a result of human activities, from sulphur dioxide, which causes the acid rain that damages buildings and kills plants, to very small particles that may cause respiratory and heart diseases.



    This is despite the fact that emissions have been reduced significantly in most countries in recent decades. The costs caused by pollution are estimated at 330-940 billion euros a year, including direct economic damages of 15 billion euros accounting for lost work days, 4 billion euros accounting for healthcare costs, 3 billion euros accounting for losses caused by damaged harvests and 1 billion euros accounting for damage affecting buildings, according to data published by the European Commission.



    Taking all these aspects into account, decision makers have begun to look for solutions. One solution, in the opinion of European parliamentarians, is to set much stricter ceilings for the main air polluters.



    The MEPs meeting in Strasbourg debated and voted on a new directive in the field establishing national objectives on the reduction of emissions for five air polluters by 2030 compared with 2005, namely sulphur dioxide, nitrogen oxide, non-methane volatile organic compounds, ammonia and fine suspended particles, the fine dust created by road vehicles and maritime travel and the soot released through burning known as “black smoke”.



    According to the European Environment Agency, these polluters originate from different sources such as heating, industry, transport, agriculture and energy production. Parliament has, however, accepted for methane to be excluded in the final proposal, even though this is not specified in the directive, said the British rapporteur. According to experts, even though methane is in much lower concentration than CO2 in the atmosphere, it is responsible for 18% of the man-made greenhouse effect.



    Reducing pollution is a must because it is the main environmental cause of death in the EU, rapporteur Julie Girling told Parliament. She said that the political context has changed dramatically in the last three years, and air quality has gone to the top of the public agenda, especially after the VW scandal and the issue of emissions in traffic. She also said that the focus on CO2 may have kept focus away from air quality.



    As early as this July, after the vote in the environment committee, she said that this was an emergency in public health, and that results would be improved by 50% between 2020 and 2030. That means that every year over 200,000 people will not lose their lives prematurely, which is paramount. There is, however, a certain flexibility, but conditional. For instance, if a country cannot live up to its commitments in a given year because of a particularly heavy winter or a very dry summer, that country can average out its emissions for that year with the one before and the one after.



    At the same time, member states are urged to include in their national air pollution control programs measures applicable to all relevant economic sectors, such as agriculture, industry, road and domestic water transportation, as well as home heating. According to the rapporteur, reducing pollution is paramount, as it is the main environmental cause of death in the EU, and would lead to a significant improvement in peoples health.



    The European Commissioner for Climate Action and Energy Miguel Arias Canete has stated that the outcome that has been achieved is a great health-related success in the European Union, in terms of preventing 50% of early deaths and a number of ailments by 2030. In addition to the benefits brought by these measures to people, they also open the way to apply the revised Gotteborg protocol, relevant to cross-border pollution.