20 April 2012

Domestic Air Pollution Killing 13,000 A Year

A major new study from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has found that air pollution is is prematurely killing 13,000 people a year in Britain, compared with fewer than 2,000 deaths a year from road accidents.

Of these, cars and lorries are thought to be responsible for 7,000 deaths, aviation almost 2,000, power plants 1,700 with the rest coming from shipping, factories and domestic emissions.

But the report suggested that environment secretary Caroline Spelman may have been wrong to say earlier this year that the most likely cause of a major air pollution event at the London Olympic games in August would come from dirty air drifting in from the continent.

The report calculated that about 60% of the polluted air breathed by Britons comes from domestic sources, the rest coming from air crossing the channel from mainland Europe.

The researchers estimated for the first time that air polluted outside Britain may kill 6,000 people a year prematurely, but dirty British air drifting the other way is killing 3,100 people a year in mainland Europe.

The findings also pinpointed where most of the deaths happen: 2,200 a year in Greater London, 630 in both Greater Manchester and West Midlands and more than 1,000 across all Yorkshire and Humberside.

The study is embarrassing for the government which is coming under the international spotlight this summer ahead of the Olympics and the Queen's diamond jubilee. Air pollution in London hit record levels last month in the heatwave and Britain already faces EU fines for consistently breaching air pollution laws.

(H)