Cleaner air must be a lasting legacy of the national crisis

By Grant Shapps and Alok Sharma

Air pollution has troubled humans for thousands of years. The residents of ancient Rome referred to their city’s smoke cloud as heavy heaven (gravioris caeli) and infamous air (infamis aer). Emperor Justinian even attempted to legislate on air quality, proclaiming the importance of clean air as a birthright.

Fast forward 1,400 years and our parliament passed the Clean Air Act in 1956 as a direct response to the great smog in London which killed 4,000 people.

Since then, we’ve made more progress. Air pollution has reduced significantly since 2010 — emissions of nitrogen oxides have fallen by 33 per cent and are at their lowest level since records began, but we know that air pollution is the biggest environmental challenge to public health, and that in areas close to busy roads, residents and drivers are exposed to disproportionately elevated levels of pollutants.

If the fight against coronavirus has taught us anything it’s that by working together we can overcome enormous challenges.

Amid the huge difficulties of the pandemic, we have also glimpsed the possibility of cleaner air over recent months, and we are determined to do all we can to make the most of this chance to create a cleaner world.

Greatly-reduced traffic volumes during lockdown had a dramatic effect on the emissions of some pollutants. Levels of nitrogen dioxide at the roadside almost halved.

At the same time levels of cycling and walking across the country were up 300 per cent on some days with people choosing active travel over other forms of transport.

However, since coronavirus restrictions were lifted, traffic levels have risen to near normal levels and nitrogen oxide levels have risen with them. We cannot afford to ignore the chance to build back better.

That’s why today, on Clean Air Day 2020, we want to show how we are working with local government to tackle this problem and to lock in the health benefits of cleaner air by supporting people to walk and cycle and to choose cleaner ways to travel.

We’re already making significant major progress. We’re making it easier than ever to own and drive an electric vehicle through record investment in infrastructure that has resulted in the UK having more charge-points than petrol stations.

We know our future has to involve the transition to zero-emission vehicles. That’s why we’re consulting on ending the sale of new petrol, diesel or hybrid cars by 2035 or earlier.

There are positive signs that people are making the switch already — just look at the latest car registration figures which showed electric vehicles account for more than one in ten registrations.

We’re also giving cycling and walking a push, backed by ￡2 billion in funding — the biggest government investment of its kind — which will see more children learning to cycle than ever before, embedding change for generations to come.

Just last week, we announced Tees Valley as the world’s first hydrogen transport hub, with the promise of thousands of jobs as we export our pioneering tech in years to come.

Of course this isn’t just about the future. It’s also about the here and now and we are already seeing the benefits of the millions of pounds the government is investing into harnessing greener forms of energy.

Last week, the first ever hydrogen-powered train ran on our rail network as part of historic trials in Warwickshire. And thanks to ï¿¡6.3 million of government funding the first hydrogen-fuelled refuse lorries, 19 of them, will soon take to the streets of Glasgow, cleaning up in more ways than one.

Despite all this work, there’s no doubt that cleaning up our air still poses a real challenge, and overcoming it is a job for all of us.

Next year, the UK will host the UN climate change conference COP26 in Glasgow. As we look ahead to that exciting moment when the world comes together to commit to urgent action, we want all countries to come forward with ambitious plans to cut their carbon emissions as soon as possible.

In 2020 we in government have the same goal as generations have before us — to tackle our “infamous air” and to unite to ensure healthier, greener ways of living, travelling and doing business, for the betterment of our health and our planet too.

Grant Shapps is the Transport Secretary and Alok Sharma is the Business Secretary