UK faces fresh legal challenge over weak plans to tackle air pollution
18.3.2016 (Guardian)
By John Vidal
ClientEarth takes government back to court over the inadequate plan it produced in December
Environmental lawyers, ClientEarth, have launched a new legal challenge against the UK government due to its repeated failure to tackle illegal air pollution. In this latest round of legal action, ClientEarth has lodged papers at the High Court in London seeking judicial review and will serve papers on government lawyers shortly. As well as the UK Environment Secretary who is named as the defendant, Scottish and Welsh ministers, the Mayor of London and the DfT will also be served with papers as interested parties in the case. ClientEarth believes the government is in breach of a Supreme Court order to clean up air quality. The Supreme Court ordered DEFRA to produce new air quality plans to bring air pollution down to legal levels in the “shortest possible time”. But the plans the government came up with, released on 17 December 2015, wouldn’t bring the UK within legal air pollution limits until 2025. The original, legally binding deadline passed in 2010. The papers lodged with the High Court ask judges to strike down those plans, order new ones and intervene to make sure the government acts. ClientEarth said: “As the government can’t be trusted to deal with toxic air pollution, we are asking the court to supervise it and make sure it is taking action.” ClientEarth are launching a fundraising campaign to help fund this work. #NO2DIRTYAIR
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ClientEarth takes government back to court over killer air pollution
18.3.2016 (Client Earth)
ClientEarth has launched a new legal challenge against the UK government due to its repeated failure to tackle illegal air pollution.
In this latest round of legal action, ClientEarth has lodged papers at the High Court in London seeking judicial review and will serve papers on government lawyers shortly.
As well as the UK Environment Secretary who is named as the defendant, Scottish and Welsh ministers, the Mayor of London and the Department for Transport will also be served with papers as interested parties in the case.
The UK sees an estimated 40,000 early deaths from air pollution every year. ClientEarth believes the government is in breach of a Supreme Court order to clean up air quality, having failed once again to take appropriate action in the face of this public health crisis.
ClientEarth won a judgment at the Supreme Court against the Secretary of State for the Environment, Liz Truss, in April last year. The ruling ordered her department to produce new air quality plans to bring air pollution down to legal levels in the “shortest possible time”.
The plans the government came up with, released on 17 December last year, wouldn’t bring the UK within legal air pollution limits until 2025. The original, legally binding deadline passed in 2010. The papers lodged with the High Court ask judges to strike down those plans, order new ones and intervene to make sure the government acts.
ClientEarth lawyer Alan Andrews said: “The government’s plans were an insult to the tens of thousands of people being made sick and dying from air pollution and failed to consider strong measures to get the worst polluting diesel vehicles out of our town and city centres.
“As the government can’t be trusted to deal with toxic air pollution, we are asking the court to supervise it and make sure it is taking action.”
A YouGov poll for ClientEarth this week revealed air pollution is Londoners’ biggest health concern, topping a list which included smoking, stress and alcohol.
In the survey, of more than 1,000 London adults, three out of four said they backed legal action to force the government to deal with air pollution.
ClientEarth is launching an appeal for donations to help fund our legal case. Those who support our action can to join the conversation on social media under the new hashtag #no2dirtyair
Alan Andrews added: “It is a disgrace that we have had to take further legal action to force the government to protect our health. It must act urgently to tackle this public health crisis.”
EB suggested excerpt: ClientEarth launches a fresh bout of legal action as the UK government continues to underwhelm on air quality efforts.
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From Energy Live News:
Around 40,000 deaths are estimated to link to air pollution every year.
Defra insists it is committed to improving the nation’s air quality and fulfilling legal obligations.
It said it has provided more than £2 billion since 2011 to help bus operators upgrade their fleets, reduce pollution and promote the development of clean alternative fuels.
A spokesperson added: “Our plans clearly set out how we will improve the UK’s air quality through a new programme of Clean Air Zones, which alongside national action and continued investment in clean technologies will create cleaner, healthier air for all.”
Last year the World Health Organisation revealed premature deaths as a result of air pollution cost more than $83 billion (£54bn) in the UK.
http://www.energylivenews.com/2016/03/18/uk-government-taken-back-to-court-over-air-pollution/
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High court challenge could force government to rewrite measures to address illegal levels of toxic NO2 gas in cities that kills about 25,000 people each year
The government faces a new legal challenge to force it to speed up and improve measures to tackle air pollution in British cities.
Environmental law group ClientEarth has asked the high court to urgently review the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs’ (Defra) latest plans to meet EU targets on the toxic gas NO2 which is emitted from vehicles and industry and is thought to kill about 25,000 people in the UK a year.
The challenge could force the government to rewrite its latest plan to reduce pollution, said Alan Andrews, a lawyer at ClientEarth.
“The plan they came up with [in December 2015] was just not good enough. It was a plan for a plan. These are classic delaying tactics. Meanwhile thousands of people are dying,” he said.
“Government has been delaying for years. This challenge will force a full legal examination of Defra’s plans.”
The move follows ClientEarth’s victory over the government in the supreme court against secretary of state for the environment, Liz Truss, in April 2015. The UK’s highest court ordered Defra to produce new air quality plans to bring pollution down to legal levels in the “shortest possible time”.
ClientEarth and other air pollution campaigners including Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace and the Healthy Air campaign dismissed the resulting plan as inadequate. The plan will see ‘clean air zones’ in Birmingham, Leeds, Nottingham, Derby and Southampton by 2020, but they do not cover private cars. London already has a separate plan in train for 2020, dubbed the Ultra Low Emissions Zone, that will cover the dirtiest cars.
“As the government can’t be trusted to deal with toxic air pollution, we are now asking the court to intervene and make sure it is taking action. It is a disgrace that we have had to take further legal action to force the government to protect our health,” said Andrews.
“The government’s plans were an insult to those being made sick and dying from air pollution and failed to consider strong measures to get the worst-polluting diesel vehicles out of our town and city centres.”
ClientEarth on Friday lodged papers with the high court and said it would be serving UK government lawyers with the claim. Scottish and Welsh ministers, the mayor of London and the Department for Transport will also be served with papers.
Jenny Bates, air pollution campaigner at Friends of the Earth, said: “It’s astonishing that ministers have done so little to tackle the UK’s killer air pollution crisis and are now facing court action again. Hopefully they will now be forced to come up with an effective plan to clean up their act, and our air.”
“It’s a public health emergency; the government must act now, not wait to be dragged through the courts… again,” said Dr Penny Woods, chief executive of the British Lung Foundation.
The UK’s air pollution problem came to the fore this week with Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, asking David Cameron at prime minister’s questions what he was going to do to stop half a million people dying from air pollution in the next 10 years. On Thursday the former Labour leader, Ed Miliband branded the government’s clean-up plan as “useless” and said people should march for action.
A Defra spokesman said: “Our plans clearly set out how we will improve the UK’s air quality through a new programme of clean air zones, which alongside national action and continued investment in clean technologies will create cleaner, healthier air for all.”
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Earlier:
DEFRA produces plan to improve air quality – Client Earth regards it as inadequate
A ruling by the Supreme Court in April 2015 required the government to produce a comprehensive plan to meet air pollution limits by December. The government has now produced this. The intention is that it has to include low emission zones, congestion charging and other economic incentives. It is thought that due to the failure to meet European limits of harmful NOx gases, which are mostly caused by diesel traffic, there are up to 9,500 premature deaths each year in London alone. Under the government’s plan, “Clean Air Zones” will be introduced – by 2020 – in areas of Birmingham, Leeds, Nottingham, Derby and Southampton where pollution is most serious. However, though vehicles like old buses, taxis, coaches and lorries have to pay a charge to enter these zones – private passenger cars will not be charged. Also newer vehicles that meet the latest emission standards will not need to pay. Client Earth, the lawyers who brought the legal case against the UK government, for breaching the EU’s Air Quality Directive, said the plan falls far short of the action necessary to comply with the Supreme Court ruling, and they will make a legal challenge to force the government to take faster action to achieve legal pollution limits. “As soon as possible,” or by 2020, is not soon enough.
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