Clean Air Day 2019: How to Get Involved

Clean Air Day is the UK’s largest air pollution campaign, organised by Global Action Plan. It gives us the chance to find out more about air pollution and share how we can all take practical steps to make the air cleaner and healthier for everyone.

This year Clean Air Day takes place on 20 June 2019 and we want you to join us in promoting what we can do to make the air cleaner.

Why We Need Clean Air

Citizens in many of Europe’s urban areas are exposed to concentrations of air pollutants such as Nitrogen Oxides (NOx), above the air quality standards defined in the 2016 Air Quality Directive and with little chance of achieving the 2020 targets unless dramatic action is taken.

In the UK a nine-year-old girl’s fatal asthma attack has been linked to illegally high levels of air pollution.

Ella Kissi-Debrah lived 25m (80ft) from London’s South Circular Road – a notorious pollution “hotspot”. She experienced three years of seizures and hospital stays before her death in February 2013. During that time, local air pollution levels breached EU legal limits. No individual death has previously been directly linked to air pollution.

What Causes Air Pollution?

Air pollution is a local, regional and international problem caused by the emission of pollutants which lead to negative impacts on human health and ecosystems. There are many sources of air pollution including:

Power stations
Traffic and vehicle emissions
Household heating
Agriculture
Industrial processes

How to Get Involved in Clean Air Day 2019

Find out more about air pollution and find out what you can do to make the air cleaner for all of us.

Check your car rating using the AIR Index

You can discover the actual emissions produced by your car using the AIR Index checker – it’s free and available now. Share the results of your AIR Index search using #CleanAirDay

Find out at about pollution levels in your area

You can search for pollution levels online via the National Atmospheric Emissions Inventory website. It’s easy to use, simply explore the interactive emissions map, enter the postcode and see the pollution levels in that area.

Join the AIR Alliance

Join us in the AIR alliance and sign up as a supporter. It’s free and we’ll keep you updated with news about the latest AIR Index ratings, policy updates and events.

More ideas from Global Action Plan

Global Action Plan have more ideas and resources available specifically for Clean Air Day. Find out how you can get involved with the national campaign.

How Cars are Contributing to Air Pollution

We should be using the cleanest cars available to address this and minimise the harmful emissions, but it’s hard to make choices with so many confusing messages about vehicle emissions. Cities and governments need to create policies which will quickly improve air quality and minimise the impact on road users.

Euro Emissions Ratings

All vehicles on UK roads must have a Euro emissions rating which reports the results of tests carried out by car makers to simulate the levels of harmful emissions produced in certain driving conditions. Unfortunately, because they are laboratory tests they do not indicate the actual emissions produced during on-road driving in towns and cities, which can be much higher than the Euro ratings.

Check your vehicle’s Euro Emissions rating.

AIR Index

The AIR Index is an international, independent and standardised rating system that reveals accurately how much pollution a vehicle produces when it is used in towns and cities.
It has been created to inform and empower car buyers and city policy makers with the real facts about vehicle emissions when making choices about car purchase and usage. A simple A-E colour-coded rating, shows the difference between clean and dirty vehicles.

Check your vehicle’s AIR Index rating.

Ultra-Low Emissions Zone (ULEZ)

The existing ULEZ policy in London is based on Euro emissions standards (minimum Euro 6 for diesel and Euro 4 for petrol) for penalty-free access, but unfortunately independent emissions testing reveals that up to half of Euro 6 diesel cars produce much higher levels of NOx from the tailpipe during city driving than during homologation laboratory tests. This means that the current ULEZ policy is inadvertently allowing in over-emitting vehicles which are contributing to the problem of poor air quality.

AIR proposes that ULEZ policy makers in London and other cities developing their own solutions should use the independent AIR Index emissions rating for vehicles, in conjunction with Euro standards to provide the most effective reduction of harmful vehicle emissions.

The AIR Index also provides ULEZ policy makers with a fair way to control access for vehicles of all ages, because it is based on the actual emissions produced, meaning that an older, lower emitting vehicle can still travel in the zone, whilst a newer more polluting vehicle may not. This ensures that access to towns and cities is not restricted only to people able to afford newer, and typically more expensive vehicles.

If the AIR Index was used as the basis for access, this would increase the effectiveness of the ULEZ and clean up London’s air more effectively.

Find out more about ULEZ and AIR Index.

What we’re doing to tackle Air Pollution

The AIR Index is a game changer.

It gives at-a-glance information on actual vehicle emissions in towns and cities. It compiles the results of the most independent, consistent and thorough tests ever carried out to:

Provide car buyers with the answers they need to make the right purchasing choices
Make the industry accountable to produce cleaner cars
Give cities and policy makers the accurate data to create fair policies

The AIR Index is published by us, the AIR Alliance, a global not-for-profit organisation and is an alliance of scientists, health regulatory experts, people and organisations committed to addressing harmful emissions from vehicles.