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POLLUTION

Europe air pollution causes 467,000 early deaths a year

Almost nine out of 10 European city dwellers breathe air that is harmful to their health, though the continent's air quality is slowly improving, the European Environment Agency (EEA) said on Wednesday.

Air pollution remains the single largest environmental cause of premature death in urban Europe, and was linked to around 467,000 early deaths in 41 European countries in 2013, according to an analysis of data from more than 400 cities.
 
In Denmark, air quality was measured at three separate locations in Copenhagen, one in Aarhus and one in Odense. 
 
“Emission reductions have led to improvements in air quality in Europe, but not enough to avoid unacceptable damage to human health and the environment,” EEA executive director Hans Bruyninckx said in a statement in connection with the agency's annual report.
 
Within the EU, the number of premature deaths was estimated at over 430,000.
 
Data from monitoring stations across Europe showed that in 2014 around 85 percent of the urban population was exposed to fine particulate matter (PM) — microscopic specks of dust and soot caused mainly by burning fossil fuels — at levels deemed harmful to health by the World Health Organization (WHO).
 
PM10, particulate matter measuring less than 10 microns, or 10 millionths of a metre, can lodge in the airways, causing respiratory problems. More perilous still are smaller PM2.5 particles which can enter the lungs and even the bloodstream.
 
The report said that in 2014, 16 percent of city dwellers in the EU were exposed to PM10 levels above the EU target, while eight percent were exposed to PM2.5 levels exceeding the threshold.
 
“Emissions of the main air pollutants in Europe have declined in recent decades, resulting in generally improved air quality across the region,” the report said.
 
But some sectors had fallen short of the reductions needed to meet air quality standards or had even increased emissions of some pollutants.
 
Emissions of nitrogen oxides — linked to respiratory and cardiovascular diseases — from road transport had not fallen “sufficiently,” the EEA said.
 
Earlier this year, the EU Commission threatened legal action against the Danish government for failing to take appropriate measures to address nitrogen dioxide pollution in Copenhagen.
 
Similarly, emissions of PM2.5 and a particular hydrocarbon from coal and biomass combustion were “sustained”, it noted.
 
“If a lot of air quality blackspots are in towns and cities then it is clear that local and regional governments play a central role in finding solutions,” EU Environment Commissioner Karmenu Vella said in a statement.
 
On a positive note, the report found that average PM10 levels fell in 75 percent of the locations monitored between 2000 and 2014, while average PM2.5 levels decreased for all station types between 2006 and 2014.
 
 

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POLLUTION

Greenpeace sounds alarm over Spain’s ‘poisonous mega farms’

The “uncontrolled” growth of industrial farming of livestock and poultry in Spain is causing water pollution from nitrates to soar, Greenpeace warned in a new report on Thursday.

Greenpeace sounds alarm over Spain's 'poisonous mega farms'
Pollution from hundreds of intensive pig farms played a major role in the collapse of Murcia Mar Menor saltwater lagoon. Photo: JOSEP LAGO / AFP

The number of farm animals raised in Spain has jumped by more than a third since 2015 to around 560 million in 2020, it said in the report entitled “Mega farms, poison for rural Spain”.

This “excessive and uncontrolled expansion of industrial animal farming” has had a “serious impact on water pollution from nitrates”, it said.

Three-quarters of Spain’s water tables have seen pollution from nitrates increase between 2016 and 2019, the report said citing Spanish government figures.

Nearly 29 percent of the country’s water tables had more than the amount of nitrate considered safe for drinking, according to a survey carried out by Greenpeace across Spain between April and September.

The environmental group said the government was not doing enough.

It pointed out that the amount of land deemed an “area vulnerable to nitrates” has risen to 12 million hectares in 2021, or 24 percent of Spain’s land mass, from around eight million hectares a decade ago, yet industrial farming has continued to grow.

“It is paradoxical to declare more and more areas vulnerable to nitrates”, but at the same time allow a “disproportionate rise” in the number of livestock on farms, Greenpeace said.

Pollution from hundreds of intensive pig farms played a major role in the collapse of one of Europe’s largest saltwater lagoons, the Mar Menor in Spain’s southeast, according to a media investigation published earlier this week.

Scientists blamed decades of nitrate-laden runoffs for triggering vast blooms of algae that had depleted the water of the lagoon of oxygen, leaving fish suffocating underwater.

Two environmental groups submitted a formal complaint in early October to the European Union over Spain’s failure to protect the lagoon.

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