Move over climate change: air pollution is the new issue in town
The UK's air quality and pollution has climbed back up the environmental agenda after years of inactivity. Here are some possible reasons why

Watch out! Air pollution is rising up the agenda after years of inactivity, when many people were convinced that climate change was the only issue in town. More than 500 London street-signs were "subvertised" on Sunday night with slogans warning people of dangerous air and tonight - provided the police do not prevent it - direct action group Climate Rush will stage a "die-in" on a busy London road. They plan to hold the space for 29 minutes, symbolic they say of the 29,000 premature deaths attributed to poor air quality in the UK every year.

On top of that you have leading environment and health groups joining the timely Healthy Air campaign, groups of MPs angry at government inaction, powerful films by young artists, and a growing awareness of the role of shipping and aviation. Elsewhere, new research in the US has suggested that $12 trillion could be saved by 2020 if $20bn was invested in eliminating air pollution.

So why the new interest in an issue that most people think was sorted out years ago? I have come up with a few ideas, but you could probably add more:

1. New cast-iron evidence of the health effects. People have been shocked to discover that air pollution is now almost as bad as it was 50 years ago. The official figures are now around 4,000 deaths in London a year, 29,000 in Britain and two years or more off the lives of around 200,000 people a year. The recent report by the government's own Committee on the Medical Effects of Air Pollutants is devastating.

2. Outrage at official cynicism. Air quality is not even in the business plan of the environment department because, says environment minister Lord Henley, it can could only focus on "certain things." The truth is that both this and the previous government has done all it can to avoid meeting EU legal minimum targets, preferring to plead for more time. This week the European commission scandalously wiped clean the slate on London's bad air record from January 2005 until now, and no EU action will be taken over the past six years of non-compliance. In short, we are all having our lives shortened by air pollution, but the government is deliberately not trying to address it.

3. A growing understanding that air quality problems are a major contributor to climate change, global food shortages and ill health. A UN Enviroment Programme report launched last month found that that short-lived "forcers", like black carbon, methane and emissions from cooking fires contribute as much as 25-30% to climate change emissions and kill up to 2.5 million people a year.

4. A strong desire by people to act. While climate change is a vast issue, billed mostly to take place in the future, air pollution is local and killing and shortening lives right now. No argument.

Interestingly (and I would not make too much of it - but others might) air quality is being put back on the map by women.

Here's Jenny Jones, the Green London mayoral candidate:"Getting clean air is rapidly emerging as the number one environmental and public health issue. This is hardly surprising when both the government and mayor have done so little about the pollution which is killing the equivalent of an estimated 4,300 Londoners every year. The real test for mayoral candidates is whether they can agree to take real action to reduce traffic, lower fares and create a very low-emission zone which only allows the cleanest of vehicles to enter central London."

Tamsin Omond of Climate Rush, who is surely a green mayoral candidate to come, has warned that if nothing is done, she and her activists will "interfere" next year with the Olympic lanes which are expected to add to pollution by forcing other traffic into side roads:

"Boris [Johnson, mayor of London] scrapped the [congestion charge] western extension zone, six-monthly taxi inspections and delayed the introduction of stage three of the Low Emission Zone. It's not good enough - and we will keep protesting - with plans to interrupt the Olympic lanes - unless we have election pledges from every candidate and strategic policies to get London breathing."

Green party leader and MP Caroline Lucas is clear: "It's an invisible health crisis. But the health impact of poor air quality in the UK, which is among the worst in Europe, is clear for all to see."

And London Liberal Democrat MEP Sarah Ludford, a long-time campaigner for cleaner air in the capital and a founder-supporter of campaign group Clean Air in London, is furious: "It's like the UK's bad air 'criminal record' is being wiped clean, and the prospect of millions in fines postponed. But from now on there is no reprieve. London has no choice but to meet the EU's strict air quality standards for this dangerous pollution that causes asthma, heart disease, lung cancer and premature death."

(By John Vidal, The Guardian, 13/07/2011)