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Member states opt for weakening air pollution targets

March 2016

By watering down proposed new air pollution targets, EU environment ministers chose not to grasp the opportunity on 16 December to prevent several thousands of annual premature deaths in Europe. The Council position thereby weakens significantly the ambition level of the revised National Emissions Ceilings (NEC) directive proposed by the European Commission and supported by the European Parliament (see AN 4/2015).

In the Commission’s proposal, premature mortality from air pollution would by 2030 be reduced by 52 per cent, compared to the base year 2005. The Council’s position lowers this to 48 per cent – just six percentage points more than would anyway be achieved under business as usual. Compared to the Commission’s proposal, the Council’s relaxed targets have been estimated to result in an additional 16,000 annual premature deaths in 2030.

Moreover, member states removed the ozone precursor methane completely from the directive and introduced a variety of additional flexibilities in order to make it easier for them to comply. The Commission already included three flexibilities in its original proposal, and the Council has now added five more.

A recent paper by a coalition of environmental organisations has strongly criticised these flexibilities, claiming that they will result in higher emissions; delayed reductions; more avoidable deaths and environmental damage; more unnecessary administration; and an unenforceable directive.

Because flexibilities are usually based on complex rules and methodologies, they are confusing to the public, media, local authorities and business, thereby undermining both the effectiveness and legitimacy of the legislation. This complexity also increases the risk of abuse by member states, which raises the question of whether the Commission has the willingness and capacity to ensure effective enforcement.

Looking at the specific Emission Reduction Commitments (ERC) for each member state, the countries want to lower 77 of the 140 targets for 2030, while agreeing to keep 52 at the level proposed by the Commission, and offering more ambitious targets in just 11 cases (see Table).

At the bottom of the league among member states we find Denmark, Bulgaria, Greece and Romania, who all have chosen to weaken their ERCs for all five pollutants, while Italy and the UK want lower targets for four owf the pollutants.

In contrast, Finland accepts all its targets, closely followed by Belgium, Netherlands and Sweden, which stick to four out of the five targets. As icing on the cake, Finland has opted for a tougher target for ammonia, and Sweden has opted for tougher targets for both sulphur dioxide and PM2.5.

Table 1: Country-by-country emission reduction targets for 2030 in per cent as compared to the base year 2005. (COM = Commission’s proposal, as adjusted in early 2015; Council = Council’s general approach as adopted in December 2015).

	SO₂		NOx		VOC		NH₃		PM2.5
	COM	Council	COM	Council	COM	Council	COM	Council	COM	Council
Austria	−41	−41	−71	−71	−40	−36	−18	−18	−49	−46
Belgium	−66	−66	−59	−59	−35	−35	−13	−13	−41	−38
Bulgaria	−93	−88	−63	−58	−69	−42	−18	−9	−66	−41
Croatia	−86	−82	−62	−57	−50	−48	−23	−23	−62	−55
Cyprus	−95	−93	−70	−55	−50	−50	−21	−20	−78	−70
Czech. R.	−73	−66	−64	−64	−50	−50	−38	−22	−50	−60
Denmark	−62	−52	−66	−58	−49	−37	−32	−24	−56	−41
Estonia	−72	−68	−46	−30	−28	−28	−1	−1	−41	−41
Finland	−34	−34	−47	−47	−48	−48	−15	−20	−34	−34
France	−77	−75	−69	−69	−52	−52	−23	−13	−56	−56
Germany	−57	−58	−64	−64	−35	−24	−38	−29	−42	−42
Greece	−92	−88	−69	−50	−64	−62	−31	−10	−71	−45
Hungary	−73	−73	−66	−66	−58	−58	−43	−25	−64	−48
Ireland	−82	−85	−71	−69	−32	−32	−10	−5	−39	−41
Italy	−71	−71	−68	−65	−49	−46	−22	−14	−54	−40
Latvia	−42	−46	−41	−34	−42	−38	3	−1	−46	−43
Lithuania	−65	−60	−51	−51	−47	−47	−2	−10	−48	−35
Luxemb.	−45	−45	−85	−82	−49	−41	−24	−22	−43	−40
Malta	−95	−95	−79	−79	−27	−27	−24	−24	−76	−50
Netherl.	−58	−58	−61	−61	−22	−15	−21	−21	−40	−40
Poland	−77	−69	−51	−39	−55	−26	−22	−22	−46	−46
Portugal	−83	−83	−61	−61	−44	−38	−19	−14	−68	−51
Romania	−92	−85	−62	−57	−67	−43	−28	−22	−69	−39
Slovakia	−82	−82	−48	−48	−32	−32	−43	−30	−63	−40
Slovenia	−88	−91	−65	−65	−59	−53	−26	−15	−76	−58
Spain	−87	−87	−66	−62	−39	−39	−21	−16	−62	−50
Sweden	−14	−22	−66	−66	−39	−36	−17	−17	−17	−19
UK	−89	−87	−74	−72	−39	−39	−24	−11	−53	−45
EU28	−81	−78	−65	−62	−46	−40	−25	−18	−54	−45

For the EU as a whole, ammonia is the pollutant for which the ambition level has been downgraded the most, by seven percentage points. This is particularly remarkable as the emission cuts achieved so far for ammonia have been very modest compared to those for the other four pollutants, and even more so when considering that the proposed reduction target for 2030 is much less ambitious than for the other pollutants.

According to the European Environmental Bureau (EEB), Denmark, Romania, Poland, Italy, Spain, the UK and Bulgaria have been particularly vociferous in calling for lower emissions reduction targets, and some member states, such as France and Germany, seem preoccupied with protecting large-scale industrial farming, which produces high ammonia emissions that are responsible for around 30,000 of these deaths, rather than protecting their citizens.

The EEB has calculated that approximately 130,000 EU citizens could die prematurely in the coming years if the air pollution ERCs are weakened in line with the Council’s position. The figure represents the cumulative extra deaths between 2016 and 2030, and has been derived by assuming a linear emission reduction from 2016 to the target year 2030.

Commenting on the Council’s position, Louise Duprez, senior air quality policy officer at the EEB, said: “It is astonishing that governments are pushing for weaker laws which would kill even more of their own citizens. The industrial farming lobby has been fighting tooth and nail to weaken these laws – first by trying to exclude methane, and then by undermining ammonia targets. Why should one sector receive special treatment, when air pollution affects us all?”

Representatives of all three institutions (Council, Parliament and Commission) began negotiations in late February with the aim of reaching a final compromise by June 2016.

Christer Ågren

The NGO paper on flexibilities can be downloaded from: http://www.eeb.org/index.cfm/library/flexibilities-in-the-national-emiss...

The EEB’s press release on calculation of cumulative premature deaths can be found at: http://www.eeb.org/index.cfm/news-events/news/analysis-over-100-000-eu-c...

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