David Holt London / CC BY-SA 2.0

The British government has admitted that its air quality targets will be missed by at least 20 years, breaching European legislation.

Nitrogen dioxide pollution, which is produced mainly by diesel vehicles, aggravates health problems such as asthma and is thought to shorten lives as much as particulate pollution -- which itself is linked to lung cancer and heart failure. Combined, Public Health England says that air pollution causes 29,000 deaths per year in the UK.

EU member states were supposed to meet targets on nitrogen dioxide pollution by 2010, but Britain has repeatedly pushed that back. Until recently, the government had said all parts of the UK would be in compliance by 2025, but have now admitted that London, Leeds and Birmingham could still be above the targets in 2030. Tyneside, Liverpool, Bristol, Sheffield and Nottingham were all expected to be in compliance by 2015, but have now been pushed back to 2025.

The admission was made during a civil case brought by environmental activist group Client Earth. It has already won a judgement in Britain's supreme court that the government is breaching its legal duty, but the European Court of Justice is now involved in the case too after being asked to define certain provisions of the EU air quality directive.

Barry Gardiner, shadow environment minister, told the Guardian: "Today's response from the European Court of Justice shows that the government is failing to meet even its own inadequate air pollution targets. Instead of implementing measures to reduce the levels of pollution, the government recently had to scrap its own air quality strategy because it would have made the problem worse, and currently the government have no plan."

A Defra spokesperson added: "We are investing heavily in measures to improve air quality and have committed billions to increase uptake of ultra-low-emission vehicles, sustainable travel and green transport initiatives."


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