Negotiators from the European Parliament and the EU Council finally reached on Feb 20th a provisional agreement on new rules to tighten air quality standards across Europe.
The headline figures are the proposed new limits on PMs and NO2:
For PM2.5 , the annual limit value is to be more than halved from 25 µg/m³ to 10 µg/m³.
For NO2, the limit value will come down from 40 µg/m³ to 20 µg/m³.
This is a very important step to improve the Air Quality of our continent, which will save thousands of lives and help improve our health.
Nevertheless, the agreement is considered not bold enough as it falls short of WHO AQ guidelines and leaves open loopholes to delay action.
The law, which must be formally adopted before it comes into effect, was watered down to include loopholes that let member states delay meeting the targets by up to a decade. Governments can postpone the 2030 deadline by five to seven years if projections show that the limit values cannot be met on time, according to the commission, and by 10 years in areas with difficult geography or in which the targets can only be met with “significant” impact on domestic heating systems.
But, on the other hand, the law also gives citizens the right to compensation when governments fail to follow the measures and damage their health as a result. It also calls for air quality plans for countries exceeding limits and roadmaps for all member states that lay out how they will comply with the 2030 targets.
CleanAir in Greece 