11 May Figures suggest air pollution dropped 89% during the London Marathon
With no cars on the route of the London Marathon, air pollution levels dropped by as much as 89% in London, reports Jacob Dickinson
Global action plan, a non-profit organisation and a group dedicated to tackling throwaway culture and its harmful effects revealed figures that show up to an 89% drop in air pollution during the London Marathon of 2018.
The group collected the figures from London Air Quality Network, which oversees a collection of monitoring stations throughout the City of London and analysed the data. The data was compared with figures of air pollution from the previous 3 Sundays leading up to the Marathon, collecting Nitrous Oxide levels from 7am to 7pm.
The figures revealed have ignited more calls for a “car-free day in London on June 21 to cut the cities emissions.
London has a track record of poor air, and as of January 30, 2018, the London reached its annual limits for air pollution. The limits are set by the European Commission, and are put in place to attempt to tackle climate change and the premature deaths of European residents. An estimated 50k Brits die annually in the UK alone as a direct result of air pollution.
The poor air quality resulting from the pollutants (such as Nitrous Oxide and Carbon Dioxide) have been linked to deadly health conditions such as: aggravated cardiovascular and respiratory illnesses, links to cancer and heart disease.
However, the committee on climate change in the UK reports that the U.K’s “emissions were 42% below 1990s levels in 2016.” It continues to explain how the U.K. is currently on track to outperform this figure in the next carbon budget (2018 – 2022) but is not on track to outperform that figure in the carbon budget of 2023 – 2027.
London Major, Sadiq Khan, introduced the T-charge in 2017, which bumps up the cost of driving in Congestion Zones to £11.50 and was introduced to discourage drivers to drive in Central London. The Congestion Charge was first introduced in 2003 with an original price of £5.
Danielle La Carola, an environmental science student thought that London could be better at tackling pollution:
“I don’t think the government are doing enough because they’re trying to tackle it but they’re actually punishing innocent Londoners who can’t afford to drive a brand new car because that new ‘if your car is older than 10 years’ [policy] and I just think that if you can’t afford to drive a car that’s any younger than 10 years, how are you going to be able to afford to drive into London. I think they’re trying to implement ways to tackle it but they’re not going the right way about it. ”
Abdi Mohammad, a student that commutes to University in central London spoke about pollution:
“On Oxford street there’s a lot of pollution, as we know and the Major, Sadiq Khan is doing a lot to try and tackle that. For example, they’re paving all of this over [Oxford Street] and that’s going to eliminate a lot of it.”
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