Air Quality - Governing Urban Air Pollution – A Regional Example (London)

Governing Urban Air Pollution – A Regional Example (London)

In Europe, Council Directive 96/62/EC on ambient air quality assessment and management provides a common strategy against which member states can "set objectives for ambient air quality in order to avoid, prevent or reduce harmful effects on human health and the environment . . . and improve air quality where it is unsatisfactory".

On 25 July 2008 in the case Dieter Janecek v Freistaat Bayern CURIA, the European Court of Justice ruled that under this directive citizens have the right to require national authorities to implement a short term action plan that aims to maintain or achieve compliance to air quality limit values.

This important case law appears to confirm the role of the EC as centralised regulator to European nation-states as regards air pollution control. It places a supranational legal obligation on the UK to protect its citizens from dangerous levels of air pollution, furthermore superseding national interests with those of the citizen.

In 2010, the European Commission (EC) threatened the UK with legal action against the successive breaching of PM10 limit values. The UK government has identified that if fines are imposed, they could cost the nation upwards of £300 million per year.

In March 2011, the City of London remains the only UK region in breach of the EC’s limit values, and has been given 3 months to implement an emergency action plan aimed at meeting the EU Air Quality Directive. The City of London has dangerous levels of PM10 concentrations, estimated to cause 3000 deaths per year within the city. As well as the threat of EU fines, in 2010 it was threatened with legal action for scrapping the western congestion charge zone, which is claimed to have led to an increase in air pollution levels.

In response to these charges, Boris Johnson, Mayor of London, has criticised the current need for European cities to communicate with Europe through their nation state’s central government, arguing that in future "A great city like London" should be permitted to bypass its government and deal directly with the European Commission regarding its air quality action plan.

In part, this is an attempt to divert blame away from the Mayor's office, but it can also be interpreted as recognition that cities can transcend the traditional national government organisational hierarchy and develop solutions to air pollution using global governance networks, for example through transnational relations. Transnational relations include but are not exclusive to national governments and intergovernmental organisations allowing sub-national actors including cities and regions to partake in air pollution control as independent actors.

Particularly promising at present are global city partnerships. These can be built into networks, for example the C40 network, of which London is a member. The C40 is a public ‘non-state’ network of the world’s leading cities that aims to curb their greenhouse emissions. The C40 has been identified as ‘governance from the middle’ and is an alternative to intergovernmental policy. It has the potential to improve urban air quality as participating cities "exchange information, learn from best practices and consequently mitigate carbon dioxide emissions independently from national government decisions". A criticism of the C40 network is that its exclusive nature limits influence to participating cities and risks drawing resources away from less powerful city and regional actors.