In February 2013, nine-year-old Ella Adoo-Kissi-Debrah passed away due to a fatal asthma attack. Her mother Rosamund believed that the heavy traffic pollution near their home in Lewisham, south-east London, was a contributing factor. In 2020, Ella became the first person in the UK to have air pollution listed as a cause of death. A second inquest confirmed that nitrogen dioxide (NO2) emissions exceeded EU and UK levels, with dangerous particulate matter (PM2.5 and PM10) also exceeding World Health Organization guidelines. The Deputy Coroner concluded that “air pollution was a significant contributory factor to both the induction and exacerbations of her asthma”.
Despite having 555 air pollution monitoring sites across the UK, up from 424 in 2020, Professor Alastair Lewis warns that we have not developed public air quality systems much over the last 30 years. While we have good measurement networks for some pollutants, others such as PM2.5 and its constituents require more expensive technology to measure. Defra states that it is “investing over £10m to at least double the size of our fine particulate matter (PM2.5) monitoring network”. The charity Asthma + Lung UK calls for more widespread, consistent, and balanced air pollution monitoring across the country, to prioritize vulnerable groups such as schools, hospitals, and care homes.
The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, has made tackling air pollution a top priority, with over 130 real-time, high-accuracy monitors managed by the London boroughs in addition to the Breathe London network. While critics of Ulez argue that levels of NO2 and other pollutants have fallen significantly over the past decade, clean air campaigners believe any improvement in air quality, however incremental, could save lives. Artificial intelligence software systems are increasingly helping to analyze the data from traffic density, weather, pollution levels and creating more accurate models that strip out the impact of wind, temperature, and sunlight on pollution readings. Rosamund Adoo-Kissi-Debrah believes that a change in human behavior is essential by driving less and over shorter distances, but to accomplish this, affordable, safe, and reliable public transport is required
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