Unlocking Cleaner Air for All Citizens: A more Ambitious EU Air Quality Directive
71% Europeans think the EU should propose additional measures to address air quality-related problems[1].
All Policies for a Healthy Europe calls for further action to be taken to minimise air pollution in the EU as win-win solution to reduce the health burden on EU citizens and to mitigate climate change.
Our Environment Working Group intensively researched the link between air pollution, climate change and health, and formulated some recommendations to improve the European Commission’s standing initiatives in this field. Among them, it is crucial to focus on the implementation of preventive measures and the reduction of emissions at source. As a coalition, All Policies for a Healthy Europe thus calls for stricter EU standards, in line with the latest published WHO guidelines, both for air quality and for long-term emissions reduction targets.
Read our full paper with recommendations below:
[1] Special Eurobarometer 497 Attitudes of Europeans towards Air Quality, November 2019.
Zero-Pollution Ambition
Prioritising citizens’ health & well-being
Environmental health & human health are intrinsically linked:
All Policies for a Healthy Europe calls on the European Commission to:
- Adopt a comprehensive Environmental Health Strategy based on a ‘Health in all policies’ approach, to streamline health requirements across relevant EU policies
- Define a set of minimum requirements for a health & well-being impact assessment of Environmental policies
- Adopt an EU strategic framework for the prevention of non-communicable diseases (NCDs)
- Put the intrinsic link between environmental health & human health at the centre of the implementation of the 2030 Biodiversity Strategy`
- Focus on co-benefits between the
Zero-Pollution Action Plan and the Europe’s Beating Cancer Plan, the Farm to Fork strategy, the EU’s 2030 Biodiversity Strategy
