Lethal but Legal Air Pollution from Domestic Burning
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Institute for Public Policy Research LETHAL BUT LEGAL AIR POLLUTION FROM DOMESTIC BURNING Josh Emden and Luke Murphy October 2018 ABOUT IPPR IPPR, the Institute for Public Policy Research, is the UK’s leading progressive think tank. We are an independent charitable organisation with our main offices in London. IPPR North, IPPR’s dedicated think tank for the North of England, operates out of offices in Manchester and Newcastle, and IPPR Scotland, our dedicated think tank for Scotland, is based in Edinburgh. Our purpose is to conduct and promote research into, and the education of the public in, the economic, social and political sciences, science and technology, the voluntary sector and social enterprise, public services, and industry and commerce. IPPR 14 Buckingham Street London WC2N 6DF T: +44 (0)20 7470 6100 E: [email protected] www.ippr.org Registered charity no: 800065 (England and Wales), SC046557 (Scotland) This paper was first published in July 2018. © IPPR 2018 The contents and opinions expressed in this paper are those of the authors' only. The progressive policy think tank CONTENTS Summary ........................................................................................................................................3 Introduction ..................................................................................................................................6 1. The health impact of air pollution ...................................................................................... 7 What is air pollution? .................................................................................................. 7 Air pollution in England ..............................................................................................8 Emissions, concentrations and exposure ................................................................ 8 Indoor air pollution ....................................................................................................12 Economic costs ............................................................................................................12 2. Air pollution from domestic combustion ........................................................................14 The role of the domestic sector .............................................................................. 14 Why are these pollutant emissions so high in the domestic sector? .....................................................................................................17 Fuel types ......................................................................................................................17 Coal, anthracite, and coal derivatives ....................................................................20 Appliances ....................................................................................................................21 Transboundary pollution .......................................................................................... 22 3. Current policy and policymaking challenges .................................................................23 The government’s new clean air strategy .............................................................. 23 The government’s ambition ...................................................................................... 24 Data availability .......................................................................................................... 25 Data gaps for wet wood............................................................................................. 25 Regional dependency ................................................................................................ 25 Primary dependency .................................................................................................. 28 Regulating fuel sources............................................................................................. 29 Trade-offs ..................................................................................................................... 29 Appliance regulations ..............................................................................................30 Local capacity ............................................................................................................. 31 4. A world leader on clean air.................................................................................................34 Overall ambition: Stricter air pollution targets post-Brexit .............................. 34 Data availability: Behaviour change and communication .................................. 35 Fuel sources: Policies to encourage clean alternatives ..................................... 36 Appliance regulations: Ambition beyond EU targets ........................................... 37 Local capacity: Local government support............................................................ 37 5. Conclusions and policymaking timeline .........................................................................38 References ..................................................................................................................................39 Appendix ......................................................................................................................................42 Lethal but legal Air pollution from domestic burning 1 ABOUT THE AUTHOR Josh Emden is a research fellow at IPPR. Luke Murphy is an associate director at IPPR. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The authors would like to thank the following people for their participation in the research roundtables and for those who contributed or provided comments and feedback on the research: Abi Hynes, Brendan Mahon, Bridget Allison, Bruce Allen, Bruno Prior, Dr Gary Fuller, Harriet Edwards, James Higgins, Laura Almond, Lesley Rudd, Matthew Farrow, Paul McNamee, Professor Helen ApSimon, Rhys Taylor, Stephen Inch, Susie Willows and Tim Minett. IPPR would also like to thank CPL Industries Ltd for their support of this project. Download This document is available to download as a free PDF and in other formats at: http://www.ippr.org/research/publications/lethal-but-legal Citation If you are using this document in your own writing, our preferred citation is: Emden J and Murphy L (2018) Lethal but legal: Air pollution from domestic burning, IPPR. http://www. ippr.org/research/publications/lethal-but-legal Permission to share This document is published under a creative commons licence: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 UK http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/uk/ For commercial use, please contact [email protected] 2 Lethal but legal Air pollution from domestic burning SUMMARY The levels of air pollution to which domestic burning in the home is a prime contributor are lethal but legal. Domestic burning in the home is the largest single contributor to PM2.5, one of the most harmful forms of particulate matter (collectively known as PMx). At 40 per cent of total emissions of PM2.5 it is more than double that of industrial combustion (14 per cent) and more than three times that of road transport (12 per cent). Of the 40,000 deaths linked to air pollution in the UK every year, 29,000 are caused by exposure to the pollutant PM2.5. The long-term impacts of PMx concentrations have also been quantified as being equivalent to 340,000 life years lost. Up until very recently, public policy has focused on the lethal and illegal concentrations of air pollution predominantly arising from road transport in the form of NO2 pollution. Yet PM2.5, the main emitter of which is domestic burning of solid fuels including wood, are measured in concentrations that are legal but actually more lethal than NO2. The government’s recent clean air strategy highlights the wider contributors to air pollution in the UK beyond transport and provides policy measures to tackle it. The government has therefore made some welcome progress particularly in regard to emissions from domestic combustion. But, with approximately 1.9 million households still using solid fuels including wood in their homes, this report argues that the health cost is too high for policy to not go further and faster. The government has committed to a new Clean Air Act and a manifesto commitment to leave our environment in a better state than they found it. The Labour Party has also committed to a new Clean Air Act to deal with illegal air quality. The environment secretary, Michael Gove, has said that Brexit is an opportunity to develop world-leading standards on air pollution. This report argues that this should include committing the UK to much stricter legal targets on air pollution, as supported by the scientific evidence, and include a target to reduce all PMx emissions from the domestic sector to near zero as possible by 2050. All should be enshrined in a new Clean Air Act for the UK, and backed by a powerful environmental watchdog with the legal powers to take action if the targets aren’t met. It is an opportunity that must not be missed. KEY FINDINGS • The EU ambient air quality limits to which the UK is currently subscribed are significantly weaker than those guidelines set by the World Health Organisation (WHO) for PM2.5 and SO2, and they are also weaker for PM10 (annual average) and for ozone. • In 2015, annual mean concentration of PM2.5 across the UK’s cities was recorded at or near the stricter limits on air pollution set out by the WHO Air Quality Guidelines (WHO AQG) and by now may be exceeding these limits. This Lethal but legal Air pollution