Air pollution to kill thousands of Europeans: watchdog

PanARMENIAN.Net - Hundreds of thousands of Europeans will suffer a premature death in the next two decades as the result of governments’ failure to act on air pollution, Europe’s environmental watchdog has warned, according to the Guardian.

In 2011, the latest year for which figures have been reliably collated, more than 400,000 are estimated to have died prematurely as a result of breathing toxic fumes, despite recent improvements in some countries

Europe is also faring badly on other environmental indicators, including the loss of biodiversity to intensive farming and urbanisation, and the poor state of many inland freshwater systems, according to the State of the Environment report for 2015, published by the European Environment Agency on Tuesday, March 3.

There have been some successes: coastal water pollution has been cleared up in many regions in the last two decades, as untreated sewage is no longer allowed to foul bathing beaches, and greenhouse gas emissions have been reduced overall. But the EEA warned that although on areas such as industrial pollution, air pollution and waste management the EU was showing good progress, the outlook for two decades from now was increasingly grim on all environmental fronts.

The agency rated key environmental indicators on a “traffic lights” system, rating them red, amber or green for how well they are being dealt with currently, and how that is likely to change in the next 20 years as current and prospective policies take a longer term effect. None of the 20 key indicators were rated as “green” in its 20 year-plus forecast.

In its five-yearly report, the EEA also urged member state governments to take a more “joined-up” view of environmental issues. The study identified as a key problem the lack of coordination of regulation intended to address different aspects of environmental damage, such as water systems and biodiversity.