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Government Watch
EU contemplates first-ever limit for PM2.5
Fine particulates (PM2.5 ) could be regulated in Europe for the first time, under proposals put forward this fall. The PM rule is part of the European Commission’s (EC’s) Clean Air Strategy, a plan to reduce the number of people dying prematurely from air-pollution-related diseases by almost 40% from the 2000 level by 2020.
The strategy also aims to reduce pollutants associated with fossil-fuel combustion and agriculture by including proposals for NH3, NOx, ground-level O3, SO2, and VOCs. Concentration limits already exist for these pollutants under various EU laws.
Adopted in September, the complete strategy is predicted to cost $8.7 billion (€7.1 billion) a year until 2020, although it mostly repackages current laws into a streamlined program. For PM2.5, the EC proposes a directive for member states to reduce average concentrations by 20% between 2010 and 2020 and would allow each state to choose how best to control its emissions. The directive includes a mandatory cap of 25 mg/m3 in the most-polluted areas. “The 25-mg limit would be mandatory once the directive was adopted and would be reviewed in 2012,” adds Lone Mikkelson, an EC spokesperson on environmental issues.
The overall clean-air strategy includes long-term objectives that may require laws to be revised. For example, it proposes to reduce NH3 emissions from fertilizers and manure for the first time and to tighten controls on emissions from shipping and aviation. Proposals to change current legislation to achieve these aims will appear over the next few years, Mikkelson adds.
Kerstin Meyer of the European Environmental Bureau, a federation of environmental citizens’ organizations, says that the best aspect of the strategy is the expansion of environment policy into sectors such as agriculture and aviation. “This is the first step towards real environmental policy integration, but it is still not explicit enough,” she says. “We are disappointed there are no legislative proposals apart from PM2.5.”
The air-pollution strategy is one of seven thematic strategies; the others are the marine environment, waste prevention and recycling, sustainable use of resources, soils, pesticides, and the urban environment.
