International Day of Clean Air for blue skies but Mungret lies in a cloud of smoke.
September 7th marks the "International Day of Clean Air for blue skies". Air pollution is the largest contributor to the burden of disease from the environment, and is one of the main avoidable causes of death and disease globally. 99% of the world’s population is now breathing polluted air, warns WHO. 7 million people die each year due to air pollution, with 90% of them in low-and middle-income countries.
In Ireland we have one of the worst levels of excess deaths in Europe, with Winter mortality rates 15% higher than Summer mortality rates. Part of this increase is linked to poorly insulated homes and inefficient heating systems, aggravating fuel poverty, but the burning of smoky fuels, especially in dense urban areas, increases pollutants in the air to hazardous levels.
Some air pollutants, such as black carbon, methane and ground-level ozone, are also short-lived climate pollutants (SLCPs) and are responsible for a significant portion of air pollution-related deaths, as well as impacts on crops and hence food security. Climate change is inextricably linked to air pollution, wherein one cannot be resolved without addressing the other, an integrated approach to tackle both could result in significant co-benefits. By 2050, we can halve global crop losses from these pollutants by reducing methane emissions, an ingredient in the formation of tropospheric ozone, an important greenhouse gas and air pollutant, which would potentially save between $4 to $33 billion USD.
Poor air quality is also linked to increased rates of hospitalisation for people with asthma and is linked to lung cancer and increased rates of bronchitis. This increased rate of hospitalisation can lead to people contracting illnesses due to overcrowding that they may not otherwise have contracted further increasing pressure on hospitals.
In the past 24 hours the measurements for small particulates in the air in Mungret have exceeded the unsafe levels as set out under EU directives on several occasions, at one stage reaching almost twice the limit of 50ug/m3 for PM10 and the PM2.5 concentration is likely to exceed the daily average limit of 15ug/m3.
Ruairí Fahy of People Before Profit has said, "Air Quality is often ignored by our government with a sparse rollout of monitors in our towns and cities. In many cases, like here in Limerick we don't even have a full range of sensors for harmful pollutants like, Nitrous Oxides, Carbon Monoxide and Sulphur Dioxide, beside the Irish Cement plant, meaning we don't have any baseline measurements to work off before they start burning tyres and other waste.
"If we really want to tackle this issue, we need to ensure tougher enforcement of environmental regulation on large polluters but we also need to change the current retrofitting plan, which so far has been delivering only for those who can afford the initial costs.
"This model where you need to pay upfront is leading to a larger gap between those who can afford to shield themselves from fuel poverty and those who can't. With those who can't resorting to dirtier solid fuels for heating, leading to poorer air quality and worse health impacts in their communities.
"People Before Profit has proposed a free upfront rollout of retrofitting, going estate by estate to improve the speed of the rollout and reduce its overall cost, with costs covered by splitting the energy savings that retrofits bring, while still lowering people’s bills. This would reduce our reliance on imported fossil fuels and allow us to provide good green jobs and apprenticeship schemes with long term job certainty for those who train as retrofitters through a publicly controlled construction company.
