Search

The London Smog of 1952 and subsequent health effects brought about a public outcry which triggered the generation and implementation of the UK’s Clean Air Act of 1956. This act and subsequent updates has been credited with ending the ‘pea-souper’ conditions synonymous with industrial and domestic coal burning. In recent years in the UK, the emergence of major smog events in urban areas due to road transport emissions, the growing volume of epidemiological evidence on the health effects of air pollution, the threat of fines by the European Commission towards Member states and the high profile court cases taken forward by ClientEarth against HM Government1has once again raise the media and political profile of air pollution but the same public outcry that was evident after the London Smog has not been seen. This story is replicated around the world, where major air pollution incidents are not (yet) resulting in wide scale social action – and consequent political changes – to our approach to tackling air pollution.

Over half of the world's population currently live in urban areas. Although the global population growth rate is declining, the global population is increasing and is expected to reach 9.6 billion by 2050, with an estimated 70% living in towns and cities. This growing population will create more demands on an increasingly stressed planet with limited resources. It will be cities and the associated industrial and commercial activities that will demand the majority of the 40% increase in world energy forecast by 2030. It will be cities that will demand the majority of the 70% increase in food forecast by 2025. It will be in cities where the growing middle classes will be the main consumers of electricity, oil, food beverages, household appliances, cars and other goods and service. This is a potential recipe for continued poor air quality and illustrates the importance of integrated multi-stakeholder strategic planning and coordinated management.