Emissions vs exposure: Increasing injustice from road traffic-related air pollution in the United Kingdom

Barnes, Jo; Chatterton, Tim; Longhurst, James

doi:10.1016/j.trd.2019.05.012

Cited by 79 publications

(52 citation statements)

References 24 publications

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“…Highest exposure levels among lower socio-economic groups is also widely found in North America and Europe, where it has been consistently shown that lower-income communities and minority groups are more exposed to air pollution from both point and mobile sources (Morello-Frosch and Jesdale, 2006;Tian, Xue and Barzyk, 2013;Taylor, 2014;Bullock, Ard and Saalman, 2018;Barnes, Chatterton and Longhurst, 2019;European Environment Agency, 2019). Similarly, in the Korba region in India, where coal mines and coal-fired power stations are clustered, marginalised social groups (the officiallydesignated Scheduled Caste (lowest caste) and Scheduled Tribe (indigenous people)) are disproportionately exposed to the environmental risks associated with coal extraction (Oskarsson and Bedi, 2018).…”

Section: Environmental Justice Applied To Ambient Air Quality On the mentioning

confidence: 97%

An Environmental Justice Perspective on Air Quality Offsets

Langerman

2019

Clean Air J.

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Air quality offsets in South Africa are intended to counterbalance the harm caused by atmospheric emissions and deliver a net ambient air quality benefit in the affected airshed. In practice, they are implemented as a condition of leniency from compliance with the Minimum Emission Standards, and they focus on converting solid fuel burning households in low-income communities to cleaner forms of energy. Air quality offsets are not supported by all stakeholders, with non-governmental organisations in particular voicing vociferous objections. To date, there have only been very limited analyses of the ethical dimensions of air quality offsets. In this paper, air quality offsets and the Minimum Emission Standards are examined and compared from the perspective of three notions of environmental justice: distributive justice, which focuses on the distribution of environmental burdens and benefits; procedural justice, which considers inclusion and exclusion in decision- and policy-making processes; and justice as recognition, which focuses on the cultural and institutional processes that determine recognition, misrecognition and non-recognition of various groups. It is found that air quality offsets should guide action which promotes distributive justice because they are focussed on reducing polluting emissions in vulnerable, low-income communities that are exposed to the highest levels of ambient pollution. From a procedural justice perspective, South Africa’s legislative processes provide for involving most stakeholders in decision-making processes. Air quality offset initiatives should be evaluated once they have been implemented at scale to determine whether they have indeed aided in redressing injustices. Assessment criteria could include whether the air quality-related health risk of vulnerable communities has been reduced, whether community members have participated in the design and implementation of interventions, and whether marginalised members of the community have benefitted from the interventions.

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Section: Environmental Justice Applied To Ambient Air Quality On the mentioning

confidence: 97%

An Environmental Justice Perspective on Air Quality Offsets

Langerman

2019

Clean Air J.

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“…The urgency created by the pandemic required the implementation and enforcement of restrictive top-down lockdown measures in a way that is not sustainable in the long term, nor acceptable on deliberative decision-making grounds in a non-emergency scenario. The SARS-CoV-2 has affected different people differently, thus exacerbating some elements of inequality in our societies, with evidence suggesting that Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) communities and those living in more deprived areas, which are also exposed to higher levels of pollution concentrations (Barnes et al 2019), are experiencing higher mortality rates (ONS 2020). Also, the measures to contain the spread of the virus have had a disproportionately negative effect on people from lower socio-economic backgrounds and those in more precarious employment (Banks et al 2020).…”

Section: The Effect Of the Covid-19 Crisis On Uk Air Quality Managemementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Third and underpinning the other two, a socioeconomic, health and environmental inequality challenge: how do we tackle these challenges in a way that is sustainable, democratic and consensual and that, crucially, does not perpetuate current patterns of inequality and social injustice in exposure to air pollution or the measures to reduce it (Barnes et al 2019)? As we pointed out earlier, the COVID-19 crisis is exposing and even exacerbating health and socioeconomic inequalities, which are coupled with existing patterns of environmental injustice related to air pollution (EEA 2018).…”

Section: The Effect Of the Covid-19 Crisis On Uk Air Quality Managemementioning

confidence: 99%

The legacy of COVID-19: lessons and challenges for city-scale air quality management in the UK

et al. 2020

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The lockdown enforced by the UK Government to prevent the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus has led to an unparalleled reduction in traffic volumes and significant drop in nitrogen dioxide concentrations in most cities, although the picture emerging from residential emissions of particulate matter (PM 10 and PM 2.5) is more complex. The scale and degree of the intervention have exposed the level of change required to reduce pollution. Learning from the COVID-19 crisis, we identify three challenges that must be overcome to improve air quality in cities. First, what measures would be effective that balance civil liberties with enforcement action on air pollution? Second, how do we consolidate the cultural change needed to retain and normalise the social practices driving the observed pollution reduction? Third, how do we tackle these challenges in a way that breaks current patterns of socioeconomic , health and environmental inequality? ARTICLE HISTORY

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“…Ambient particulate matter pollution will increase mortality and morbidity and has become one of the leading four risk factors contributing to death in China [2][3][4]. In highly populated urban areas, traffic is a major local source of ambient air pollution [5]. Congested traffic conditions also exacerbate air pollutant emissions from vehicles in highly populated cities, especially since many of these vehicles move around continuously looking for parking spaces [6].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Vertical and Horizontal Profiles of Particulate Matter and Black Carbon Near Elevated Highways Based on Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Monitoring

et al. 2020

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Highways passing through cities cause additional pollution inside the city. However, most of the current studies are using ground-based monitoring technologies, which make it difficult to capture the dispersion patterns of pollutants near elevated highways or transportation interchanges. The purpose of this study is to discover short-term three-dimensional variations in traffic-related pollutants based on unmanned aerial vehicles. The monitoring locations are at suburban elevated highway and transportation interchanges. The monitoring parameters include the particle number concentration (PN), particle mass concentration (PM), and black carbon (BC). The vertical profiles showed that most air pollutants increased significantly with the height of the elevated highways. Compared with the ground level, PNs increased by 54%–248% and BC increased by 201%. The decline rate of particle concentrations decreased with the increase of height and remained stable after 120 m. Furthermore, the R2 heatmap for regressions between each altitude showed that the linear relationship between 0–120 m was higher than that of other altitudes. In horizontal profiles, PNs spread to 100 m and then began to decline, BC began to decay rapidly after 50 m, but PMs varied less. After crossing another highway, PNs increased by 69–289%, PMs by 7–28%, and BC by 101%. Furthermore, the formation of new particles was observed at both locations as PN3 increased with distance within 100 m from the highway. This paper fills in the void of three-dimensional in situ monitoring near elevated highways, and can help develop and refine a three-dimensional traffic-related air pollution dispersion model and assess the impacts of transportation facilities on the urban environment.

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Emissions vs exposure: Increasing injustice from road traffic-related air pollution in the United Kingdom

Cited by 79 publications

References 24 publications

An Environmental Justice Perspective on Air Quality Offsets

An Environmental Justice Perspective on Air Quality Offsets

The legacy of COVID-19: lessons and challenges for city-scale air quality management in the UK

Vertical and Horizontal Profiles of Particulate Matter and Black Carbon Near Elevated Highways Based on Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Monitoring

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