Air pollution is a home-grown health crisis
Air pollution has been all over the news this week, and rightly so – it’s an invisible health crisis and the UK government is failing to protect us. Dust from the Sahara has made the pollution easier to see, but as little as 5% of this deadly dust is caused by Saharan sand – the rest is home-grown right here in the UK, and blown from Europe.
ClientEarth, which coordinates the Healthy Air Campaign, sued the UK Government over air pollution and won. Our case spurred the European Commission to launch legal action against the UK for failure to protect people from dangerous air pollution. At the end of 2013, the European Commission also released new proposals to clean up air pollution, but unfortunately they didn’t go far enough. We are working to make sure EU laws are strong enough to enforce clean air in the UK and the rest of Europe.