5 June 2019

Today marks World Environment Day, and the theme for this year is ‘air pollution’.

Jean Lambert, London’s Green MEP, highlights the tragic case of Ella Kissi-Debra – a nine-year-old girl from South East London – who sadly lost her life in 2013 following a deadly asthma attack.

It’s time to take action and fight for real, sustainable change to protect children like Ella and future generations.

Watch Jean’s video message above, or on YouTube here.

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It features a look at the massive march for a People’s Vote on Brexit that took place on 23rd June, the ongoing fight against Heathrow expansion, the European Parliament’s stand against the Hungarian Government and much more….

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The UK’s Green MEPs have criticised the Government’s decision to push ahead with Heathrow expansion [1], branding the move a “a sick joke” that shows disdain for public health and the UK’s climate commitments.

Jean Lambert, London’s Green MEP, said:

“It’s a sick joke that the Government would choose World Environment Day to confirm its plans to expand Heathrow Airport. This highlights the total disregard of our Government ministers towards the immense environmental risks facing our planet and people today.

The European Commission is already taking the UK Government to court for failing to tackle illegal levels of air pollution [2]. This decision will only exacerbate this problem​,​ as the Government wel​l knows. It undermines their own claims of tackling air pollution and creating a healthy environment – both in general and for the many people who live, learn and work near Heathrow.”

Keith Taylor, Member of the European Parliament’s Transport and Tourism Committee, said:

“Heathrow expansion remains the British political establishment’s most dangerous climate blindspot. Aviation is already a top ten global polluter and emissions from the heavily subsidised industry are set to balloon by 300 to 700% if urgent action isn’t taken [3].

Not accounting for any expansion, aviation is already expected to use up more than two-thirds of the UK’s carbon budget by 2050 [4]; part of the reason why the UK is already on course to miss its legally-binding climate targets [5].

Meanwhile, the local environment, air pollution, traffic and noise pollution impacts on millions of residents across London and the South East will be devastating but, according to the Government, the regions must be sacrificed for a faulty idea of the ‘national interest’.”

Molly Scott Cato, Green MEP for the South West, added:

“Transport is the EU’s jumbo sized problem when it comes to climate change. Greenhouse gas emissions from transport have risen for three consecutive years in Europe [6]. Expanding aviation is totally inconsistent with our obligations under the Paris Agreement. The energy transition needed to meet our climate change commitments is taxying and ready for take-off, which risks leaving airports and runways at risk of becoming stranded fossil assets.

Greens in Europe have set out a number of progressive measures to drive down transport emissions. These measures, forming the basis of a European Parliament resolution, include proposals to end the tax break currently enjoyed by the aviation industry by introducing a harmonised kerosene tax and the removal of VAT exemption on air passenger tickets [7]. Brexit could mean the UK falling outside these progressive EU measures and the sky would become the limit when it comes to UK aviation emissions.”

Notes:

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/jun/05/grayling-gives-go-ahead-to-heathrow-third-runway-plan
[2] https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/britain-government-eu-court-air-pollution-dangerous-levels-european-commission-latest-a8355711.html
[3] https://ec.europa.eu/clima/policies/transport/aviation_en
[4] https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-aviation-to-consume-half-uk-1point5c-carbon-budget-2050
[5] https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/700496/clean-growth-strategy-correction-april-2018.pdf (page 41)
[6] https://www.eea.europa.eu/highlights/small-cut-in-eus-total
[7] https://www.greens-efa.eu/en/article/news/greens-efa-round-up-7572/

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It features how the EU is holding the UK to account over air pollution, my efforts to save UK citizens’ EHIC cards after Brexit, the work being done in Parliament to encourage Sajid Javid to protect EU citizens’ rights and much more….

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Jean Lambert, London’s Green MEP, has welcomed news today that the UK has been referred to the European Court of Justice for failing to tackle illegal levels of air pollution. The case highlights why the UK critically needs a strong independent environmental watchdog, with the legal teeth to hold the Government to account.

Jean Lambert MEP said:

“It’s extremely worrying that the EU needs to take legal action to force the UK Government to uphold its own legal obligations on NO2 air pollution. After Brexit, this is exactly the sort of legal oversight the Tories hope to escape. [1]

The Government’s own defence – that withholding its clean air plans is in the ‘strong public interest’ – is nothing short of farcical. [2] If ministers truly cared about the public interest, they would stop dragging their feet and do everything in their power to clean up the UK’s dirty air.

This apathy has led to a public health emergency in my constituency, London. Already this year, Brixton Road has exceeded the EU’s average hourly legal limits for NO2 pollution 65 times. Putney High Street has exceeded them 22 times, and spots in Westminster and the City of London aren’t far behind. [3] The Mayor’s decision to push ahead with the new £1bn Silvertown tunnel will simply exacerbate this problem – bringing new roads, new traffic and a new air pollution crisis to the local area. [4]

Hopefully this court case will act as a wake-up call to the Government, and to anyone who cares about the quality of the air they breathe. It highlights why we can’t allow the Tories to leave the EU without creating a strong independent environmental watchdog, with the legal teeth to hold it to account – in fact, it would be a good move in any case. If not, we can be sure they will continue to recklessly flout their environmental and public health responsibilities for many years to come.”

Notes:

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/may/17/uk-taken-to-europes-highest-court-over-air-pollution

[2] http://eeb.org/national-air-pollution-plans-too-little-too-late-to-avoid-court/

[3] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/ng-interactive/2018/jan/01/london-air-pollution-live-data-where-will-be-first-to-break-legal-limits-in-2018

[4] http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-44071370

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It looks at the effects a hard Brexit could have on healthcare, especially for cancer patients and Jean’s work on this. It highlights her trip to Cox’s Bazar to talk to Rohingya refugees, examines the Mayor’s new clean air strategy for London and much more…

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Air pollution in London has today reached the EU’s legal limit for the whole of 2018.

EU legislation requires that the hourly measurement of toxic nitrogen dioxide must not exceed 200 micrograms per cubic metre more than 18 times in a year. However, Brixton Road has now recorded 18 breaches. Other areas of London have also breached the hourly limit – Putney High Street six times, and Marylebone Road twice so far in 2018. [1]

Jean Lambert, London’s Green MEP, said in response:

“It’s bitterly disappointing that Brixton Road has already reached the EU’s legal air pollution limits for 2018. Even more alarming is that Putney High Street and Marylebone Road are not far behind. We need to face facts – London is in the midst of a serious public health emergency, which will lead to some 10,000 premature deaths in our city this year alone.

This is particularly unfortunate given that the Tories’ new poster boy for environmentalism, Michael Gove, has been summoned to the European Commission to explain the UK’s failure to meet the EU’s safety limits. Unfortunately, presenting Defra’s abysmal new air pollution strategy – which will allow air pollution to breach legal limits in London until 2028 – will achieve nothing except to highlight the UK Government’s total inability to really get to grips with this issue.

​​Clean air is essential for our health and should be enjoyed by everyone, regardless of where they live, learn or work. I’ll continue to demand that the UK meets ambitious air pollution standards – whether it is inside or outside of the European Union.”

Notes:

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/ng-interactive/2018/jan/01/london-air-pollution-live-data-where-will-be-first-to-break-legal-limits-in-2018​

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The UK’s Green MEPs – Jean Lambert (London), Keith Taylor (South East) and Molly Scott Cato (South West) – have written a letter to London’s Evening Standard criticising the Government’s revised proposals for Heathrow expansion.

Read the letter below, or on the Evening Standard website here.

The Government’s revised proposals for the expansion of Heathrow highlight how much damage would be caused by this reckless project.

They reveal that Heathrow is already having a more detrimental impact on our air than we realised, with an estimated 86 per cent of the toxic air in the surrounding area related to the airport — rather than the previously estimated 70 per cent. It has also emerged that building a third runway will increase toxic air pollution even more than originally predicted.

As a result, the Government must rule out the possibility of a third runway at Heathrow. But before the Gatwick PR machine leaps into action, it is worth pointing out that there is simply no need for a new runway in London. Every airport but one is operating under capacity, and the cases put forward by Gatwick and Heathrow to solve the manufactured “crisis” rely on vastly inflated job creation predictions.

By continuing to pursue this strategy, the Government is displaying a shocking disregard for the UK’s moral obligation to tackle a genuine air pollution public health emergency.

Jean Lambert, Keith Taylor and Molly Scott Cato, Green Party MEPs

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UK Green MEPs Jean Lambert, Keith Taylor and Molly Scott Cato, have submitted a consultation response to the UK’s revised air quality plan for tackling nitrogen dioxide in our towns and cities. (1)

You can read the full Green submission here.

The submission found that the Government’s proposed measures and the plan in general was not fit for purpose:

The Government’s Draft Air Quality Plan, reluctantly released in May 2017 following a court order, rests on 2 main approaches. Increasing road building projects and investing in the acceleration of electric vehicle technology. The Government has stated that these measures will bring about the necessary reductions in Nitrogen Dioxide (NO2) to bring the Country in line with the maximum permitted levels.

The main issues with the Government’s plan are the lack of details about how the measures will be implemented, but also some of the approaches to tackling the levels of air pollution. The plan talks about increasing the uptake of ultra low emission vehicles, allocating funding to electric and hydrogen vehicle development, to provide support to tackle congestion on the roads and ensure the UK’s local and strategic roads and public transport networks are fit for purpose. The UK government aims to tackle the issue of air pollution from road transport by getting people to buy new cars and by investing in road building. It states that road transport is a key part of almost everything we do. The Government is not committing to changing the status quo. These approaches are fundamentally flawed and will likely make the problem worse in the long run.

This is not a plan capable of addressing the fact that 90% of urban areas have experienced illegal levels of NO2 since 2010. It is not a plan capable of preventing the premature death of some 12,000 from NO2 pollution every year. It is a plan that is not fit for purpose.

You can read the full Green submission here.

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(1) For more information about the Defra/DfT consultation, see: https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/improving-air-quality-reducing-nitrogen-dioxide-in-our-towns-and-cities

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Jean Lambert, Green MEP for London and Keith Taylor, Green MEP for the South East have submitted a joint response to the Government’s consultation on new runway capacity in the South East of England.

Jean and Keith’s response focuses on the following issues:

• they reject the Government’s argument that there is a need for new runway capacity in the region
• the economic benefit from the proposed new runway (the Heathrow Northwest scheme) is extremely questionable and will do nothing to rebalance the UK economy
• the proposed new runway and its operation will have significant negative impacts, especially in terms of climate change, air pollution, traffic congestion, noise, and impacts on local communities and the environment
• the measures proposed by the Government fail to address these negative impacts
• the proposed new runway will undermine UK carbon reduction targets and objectives and will make London’s already dangerous air pollution worse.

You can read Jean and Keith’s full submission here.

You can read their response to question 1, on the Government’s case for the need for new runway capacity, below.

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The need for additional airport capacity

Question 1: The Government believes there is the need for additional airport capacity in the South East of England by 2030. Please tell us your views.

We do not believe the Government has made a convincing case for the need for additional airport capacity in the South East of England and London. (In the context of this submission we are using the term ‘South East’ to also apply to London.)

The consultation ignores the fact that Airports Commission forecasts show that growth in UK demand would be met by other airports, both elsewhere in the South East, but also outside the South East, where there already exists spare capacity.

In terms of connectivity, Airports Commission analysis shows that a third Heathrow runway will reduce the international connectivity of the UK’s regional airports. Rather than being a necessary response to a ‘need’, a third runway at Heathrow will have the effect of displacing connectivity from other regions.

The Government has elsewhere said it wants to rebalance the UK economy in favour of areas outside the South East. We strongly challenge the claim that a significant net economic benefit will arise from airport expansion in the South East. However, creating additional airport capacity within the South East goes directly against that objective of rebalancing the UK, especially in terms of infrastructure and investment.

We also question the value placed on ‘Heathrow’s hub status’. A large proportion of international passengers using Heathrow as a hub simply change planes there, and are travelling from one international destination to another without any UK stopover. No quantification of the economic value of these passengers has been made, yet there is an assumption that these interchange flights are economically beneficial and should be encouraged and provided for. We question that assumption.

We question both the need and the benefit of expanding Heathrow and of airport expansion in the South East more generally, and conclude that the case has not been made. Indeed the benefits have been significantly overstated, and the costs and impacts significantly understated.

In particular, we are concerned about how the economic benefit argument is presented. The Department for Transport is claiming Heathrow expansion will deliver an economic benefit of £61 billion. However, this is a gross figure, which does not take into account the direct and indirect costs, and does not factor in other costs, such as the climate, noise and air pollution impacts, as well as the social costs to affected local communities and the wide range of negative impacts that will arise from those.

On the issue of the required surface access improvements, the cost projections are disputed. Transport for London (TfL) estimates surface access improvements will cost £15 billion, which includes a new southern rail link from Waterloo to Heathrow. The Department for Transport is insisting on a much lower figure. In its 2015 submission, TfL conclude that the Airports Commission proposed £5bn cost underestimates the actual cost by £10-15bn. (See http://content.tfl.gov.uk/tfl-response-to-airports-commissions-final-recommendation.pdf, p29.) As London’s transport provider, TfL’s surface access cost assessments needs to be more fully taken into account.

The ‘need’ to expand capacity is also based on demand forecasts. However, air travel demand and its growth is highly price-sensitive and will continue to be. Given that aviation is predicted to make up an increasing proportion of the UK’s total greenhouse gas emissions, and international aviation is likely to establish carbon pricing regimes for flights, it should not be assumed that the current era of tax-free fuel and low cost flights will continue indefinitely. Mitigating the impacts of carbon intensive activities like flying by applying the ‘polluter pays’ principle effectively, could therefore impact on future demand levels. This is even more possible given the aforementioned price-sensitivity of air travel demand. These factors have not, we believe, been properly taken into account when formulating the policy.

Furthermore, the likely impact of Brexit on aviation demand needs to be taken into consideration. According to a briefing published by the International Air Transport Association (IATA) in June 2016 (http://www.iata.org/publications/economic-briefings/impact-of-brexit.pdf), “the number of UK air passengers could be 3-5% lower by 2020, driven by the expected downturn in economic activity and the fall in the sterling exchange rate. The near-term impact on the UK air freight market is less certain, but freight will be affected by lower international trade in the longer term.” The EU is the single biggest destination market from the UK accounting for 49% of passengers and 54% of scheduled commercial flights.

In addition to our concerns regarding climate change, noise and air pollution, as outlined above, there is certainly also a good reason to call for the demand for a new runway to be reassessed in view of the UK’s exit from the EU.

In sum, we believe that the need for airport expansion in the South East and London has not been demonstrated. The costs – in terms of financial costs, air pollution, climate, noise and community impacts have not been sufficiently taken into account. The economic benefits arising from increased capacity in the South East have been overstated. Once the negative impacts and true costs are fully taken into account, we believe that no net benefit will arise. In addition, airport expansion in the South East will do nothing to rebalance the UK economy.

ENDS

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