Government report warns climate change policies could damage air quality

Measures designed to cut carbon emissions could inadvertently undermine efforts to improve air quality unless the government tightens integration between climate change and air pollution policies.

That is the conclusion of a major new report from Defra released today, which estimates the UK economy would save £24bn by 2050 adopting measures that jointly help prevent carbon emissions and air pollution.

The study, titled Air Pollution: Action in a Changing Climate, acknowledges that many aspects of the government's Low Carbon Transition Plan (LCTP), such as the roll out of electric vehicles and renewable energy technologies, will jointly serve to reduce carbon emissions and improve air quality.

But it warns that improvements in air quality delivered by shifting away from fossil fuels could be initially "outweighed" by an expected increase in the number of companies generating energy onsite through combined heat and power or biomass systems.

"In the shorter term, some measures suggested in the LCTP may slow down improvements in air pollution," the report concludes.

It urges the government to consider air quality impacts when developing climate change policies, arguing that "factoring air quality into decisions about how to reach climate change targets results in policy solutions with even greater benefits to society".

Defra's chief scientific adviser, Bob Watson, said that tighter integration between air pollution and climate change policy would deliver improvements in both areas. "We've seen time and again that dealing with environmental problems in isolation is neither effective nor efficient," he said. "We need a coordinated view which confronts the complexities involved and seeks to maximise the co-benefits of actions."

However, the recommendations contained in the report could deal a blow to government plans for expanded use of biomass, combined heat and power, and biofuels - each of which were highlighted as posing potential threats to air quality.

In particular, the report warns the expanded use of biomass, especially in urban areas, will have to be very carefully managed in order to minimise impacts that are "likely to be increasingly negative on urban air quality".

A spokeswoman for Defra said government projections showed that the uptake of biomass heat will have only a small impact on air quality up to 2020. "We are working to ensure that increased use of biomass does not lead to detrimental effects on air quality," she added. "For example, we are looking at emissions levels from biomass boilers and have given advice to local authorities on how planning can be used to ensure that the uptake of biomass is appropriate for their area."

Poor air quality remains a major issue in the UK, with areas of the capital still at risk of unlimited fines as a result of ongoing breaches of EU air quality rules and government figures estimating that poor air quality costs the economy £15bn a year, while reducing average life expectancies by six months.