EUROPEAN COMMISSION
Janez Potočnik
European Commissioner for Environment
"If you think the economy is more important than the
environment, try holding your breath while counting
your money"
Launch of the EEA's Report on Air Quality 2013
Brussels, 15 October 2013
SPEECH/13/822
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Distinguished guests,
It is a pleasure to be here today. I wish to thank the Environment Agency and the
European Policy Centre for organising this event. It is again very timely. I would like to
use it as a kind of curtain raiser for the work we are doing to deliver better air quality in
November this year.
I would like to share with you a story of Minamata, a place I visited last week. It is a
story of thousands of people living beside a beautiful fishing bay who got mercury
poisoning from a company operating nearby. 1,700 people died, some 4000 were
heavily affected. It happened 70 years ago but there are still the remains of pollution in
people. They are socially excluded as the disease is transferred from generation to
generation. So, if anyone wishes to put business interests above the public interest, I
will tell him this sad story of Minamata.
Hans' presentation and the EEA's Air Quality Report are powerful reminders of the scale
of the challenges we are facing.
So are citizens' surveys like the Eurobarometer, which show that air quality is a major
concern for citizens throughout Europe. People are worried about the impact of poor air
quality on their health, especially the health of our children and other vulnerable people.
And they are also worried that so many of the natural areas which they enjoy and have
worked to restore are badly affected by air pollution.
And we all agree.
Our review analysis confirms that air pollution is the number one environmental cause of
death in the EU, with over 400 000 premature deaths in 2010. More than 10 times the
deaths from traffic accidents! This is a huge cost to citizens' health and the economy.
The external costs were between €330-940 billion per year in 2010. Among these are
significant direct impacts on the economy: 100 million lost workdays each year, with a
direct cost of about €15 billion in lost productivity. Bad air also adds €4 billion to our
healthcare costs because of hospitalisation.
Over the last 2 years, the Commission has been working intensively with all parties on
what needs to be done with these challenges. What has come out of our collective work
on this? Let me highlight two key issues.
The first is the need to actually deliver on the air quality targets we currently have. The
joint implementation pilot project we conducted with the Agency – the so-called 'Cities
Pilot' – helped identify the key issues. Member States must take their responsibilities
seriously, but at EU level we can support air quality assessment and management in two
ways – by reinforcing capacity and through funding. On the capacity side, we will build
on the Pilot's success in sharing best practice, by establishing an urban air quality
network to share problems and solutions and by harnessing the resources of the
Information and Governance pillar of the new LIFE regulation.
LIFE will also support a series of large scale integrated projects designed to improve air
quality compliance and leverage access to other funding sources. I also wish to see cities
and regions maximising the use of EU funds to promote fuel switching in those areas
where domestic solid fuel is still a major problem, and new mobility initiatives to reduce
transport impacts. Much of the structural funds go unused, even though areas with the
biggest air quality problems often have the most preferential access, with co-funding
requirements as low as 15%.
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The second key issue is the need to move much closer to the EU long term air quality
objective – of levels of air quality that do not give rise to significant negative impacts on
human health and the environment.
For human health this means that air pollution must be below the levels which the WHO
have indicated as safe, and the EEA report shows that, even with full compliance, we
would still be far from achieving this. Likewise, major eutrophication impacts across
Europe will remain, with very little improvement beyond 2020.
My main objective is thus to put the EU on a clear pathway towards achieving the WHO
guidelines by setting a programme of action up to 2030. For 2020, the emission
reduction commitments have already been agreed under the Gothenburg Protocol, and
we would maintain this international position. Whether we like it or not, they are
perhaps not as ambitious as we would like it to be. This is why for 2025; I would like to
see much more substantial mandatory emission reduction targets based on the
technology that is proven today, in 2013, and the inevitable structural changes that our
economies will have to undertake.
The 2030 reductions should be based on a realistic reduction to achieve broad
compliance with the WHO guidelines in 2050 at the latest. This may prove challenging
but is achievable given reasonable assumptions on technology learning and structural
changes driven by decarbonisation for instance.
To deliver on these targets an emission reduction policy is of utmost importance. The
EEA has – rightly – focused today on ambient air quality across the EU. Reducing
emissions that actually cause the high air pollution concentrations across Europe is a key
step towards achieving WHO limits. The air policy review showed that policy should focus
on achieving compliance with existing air quality standards, and on using a revised NEC
Directive to bring down pollution emissions in the period to 2030. Those emission
reductions will in turn drive down overall air pollution concentrations across Europe,
bringing major health and ecosystem benefits.
The emission reductions package I intend to present will thus comprise:
 a revised National Emission Ceilings directive to implement reductions up to 2030
together with reinforcement of existing legislation such as the Industrial Emissions
Directive, Eco-design and Non-Road Mobile Machinery;
 ratification of the Gothenburg Protocol; and
 action on air pollution from medium scale combustion installations.
If adopted, the number of premature deaths could be reduced by about an additional
third over the baseline, and the areas affected by eutrophication by another 50%. The
estimated benefits for the economy, citizens and the environment would amount to
nearly € 45 billion per year with cost representing only a tenth of it based on the most
conservative estimation of the value of human life.
New opportunities are also opening up in the rapidly expanding global markets for
abatement technology and services. The EU can gain a competitive advantage and
exploit opportunities by focusing research and development on resource-efficient and
less polluting technologies that other countries will eventually need to adopt. I was in
China in July and most of the funding in the future will be channelled towards cleaner
technologies. This political leadership cannot afford leaving air pollution unchecked. This
opens up huge opportunities for our emission control industry.
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Finally, I would like to be clear about one thing: the Ambient Air Quality Directive
remains an important tool to ensure that citizens enjoy the same protection everywhere.
We are not shelving it. It will be kept under review, with a view to revision once the
NECD has set overall air pollution on the right downwards track.
***
Ladies and gentlemen,
Air quality is in many ways an environmental success story. EU air policy already in
place has clearly worked, and it has been effective. .
The air policy package I will present in a few weeks will set out a clear strategy,
including new binding emission ceilings and targeted source control measures with the
target years 2020, 2025 and 2030. It will create a roadmap for how we can live longer,
become healthier, and protect our most fragile ecosystems better. Effective air policy is
in fact about creating a better society for all.
Of course, I cannot achieve this alone. Managing the air we breathe cannot be done from
Brussels. It requires concerted action in many sectors and policy areas and I will rely on
the support and constructive input from all stakeholders. Let us start this dialogue
already today. I look forward to your comments and questions. By the way, I am also
researcher by training. And what I see for air quality unlike in other areas, there is a
clear recognition of the scientific community about the correlation between the pollution
and the impacts.
Let me finish with an excellent quote I went through recently from Professor Guy
McPherson: "if you think the economy is more important than the environment, try
holding your breath while counting your money".
I would like to add to this: let's save money and afford a fresh breath of air!
Thank you.
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