It’s a staggering quantity that triggered my newest analysis for EuronewsWitness: 400,000 folks on the European continent die prematurely, yearly. Why? It’s the soiled air they breathe in European cities that kills them.
I used to be shocked by the sheer measurement of this quantity. How can this be?
For years, the European Fee has been launching infringement procedures in opposition to EU member States, together with France. The air pollution burden is way too excessive. Ranges of dangerous substances are sky-rocketing above authorized limits, triggering well being issues and shortening the life expectancy of many individuals residing in huge French cities, similar to Paris, Grenoble, Strasbourg, Marseille - and Lyon.
Monitoring air high quality with ATMO
Downloading an app referred to as ATMO I take a stroll in Lyon – a metropolis that’s famend throughout Europe for its site visitors jams. The freeway to the sunny south cuts by the center of the town. My ATMO app offers me real-time details about every road I stroll in.
It’s a panoramic expertise, colors change from orange unhealthy air to darkish crimson: very unhealthy air. It’s an excellent day: no purple reveals up. Get out as fast as you'll be able to…
Visitors Air pollution
I've an appointment with the Lyon primarily based singer-songwriter Renaud Pierre, assembly him whereas he walks his son to high school. The lecture rooms are subsequent to the Croix-Rousse tunnel, channelling heavy site visitors into the town centre.
“The issue,” Renaud tells me. “Is the 47.000 vehicles passing by this tunnel daily. And on prime of that, there are much more vehicles, driving down the banks of the River Rhône. All these automobiles herald an unlimited quantity of air air pollution. We would like politicians to take this critically.”
Renaud and faculty director Pascal Barbier take me to the measuring station within the schoolyard, near the tunnel exit. The nitrogen dioxide values are skyrocketing. Barbier determined to shut the yard – youngsters are now not allowed to play right here. Along with different mother and father and motion teams, Renaud helped set off authorized motion in opposition to the town and the State.
Hyperlinks to most cancers
Is there actually a confirmed hyperlink between air air pollution and folks dying prematurely?
I meet Thomas Coudon on the most cancers analysis centre, Léon Berard. Along with a staff of younger scientists, he's attempting to know higher the hyperlinks between soiled air and most cancers. And, sure, there's a hyperlink.
“Particulate matter air pollution and diesel engines are categorized as inflicting most cancers,” Coudon confirms.
Low emission zones
Increasingly residents are fed up with the unhealthy air high quality. That’s mirrored in native election outcomes. A rising variety of huge cities, similar to Lyon and its agglomeration, are actually ruled by inexperienced events.
However the soiled heritage from the previous can't be cleaned up in a single day.
“Why the Lyon metropolis air is so soiled?” I ask the president of the Lyon Metropolitan space, Bruno Bernard.
Bernard blames “an absence of motion by political decision-makers such because the French State” – and former native authorities not having taken motion in time.
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However what needs to be performed subsequent, I wish to know.
“Low emission zones needs to be arrange,” Bernard says. “With a purpose to get out polluting automobiles from the town centre.”
Bernard and his staff are engaged on a exact timetable, together with an finish to diesel engines within the coronary heart of the town by 2026.
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