|
In order for Member
States to be confident that the EU Limit Values will be achieved within all
areas of their country two goals must be achieved:
·
They must have a clear
idea of what air quality is like (at a very fine scale) across all parts of the
country;
·
Where the former has
shown that AQ is currently unlikely to meet the Limit Values it is essential
that the national government is aware of possible actions being carried out
with regard to improving it.
Topic Differences in responsibilities for air pollution between levels of government across Europe looks at
how responsibilities have been transferred from the national governments of
Member States to lower levels of government. This Topic differs in that it
looks at the frameworks and assistance that can be provided to help/ensure that
local government can meet the Limit Values.
Very few countries in Europe have
managed to implement a successful framework for carrying out this process. The UK is regularly cited as having one of the best examples of a
framework and so the following outline will be based mainly on elements that
have been implanted there.
·
Statutory
Responsibilities – Probably the most important driver for ensuring that Local
Authorities put due priority on air quality work is by making it a statutory
requirement. Environmental issues are regularly sidelined in favour of economic
benefits and this is a reliable way in which local government air quality
officers can have their standing within the council increased. In the UK clear
responsibilities have been laid out for local government to make them carry out
‘Review and Assessments’ of their local air quality, declare ‘Air Quality
Management Areas’ in any places where the UK AQ Objectives appear unlikely to
be met, and then, where necessary, to devise local action plans N.B. UK Las
only have a responsibility to ‘work towards’ meeting objectives – not to
actually achieve them.
·
Financial Resources –
Many people might put this in first place – however, without statutory
responsibilities or strong ring-fencing, it is unlikely that local government
priorities would divert as much money as intended towards air quality work.
Assistance with finances also becomes necessary one the legal requirements to
do the work have been put in place.
·
Guidance – Again, the
imposition of a legal requirement to carry out certain air quality work
requires further assistance to be put in place. In order for national
governments to ensure that local government can be fairly expected to comply,
there is a need for guidance to be issued to the Local Authorities clearly
outlining how work should be carried out and to what standard. This is
particularly important in terms of how monitoring and modelling should be
carried out so that all work is of an acceptable standard and comparable. Basic
guidance can be issued in the form of written manuals. However, in the UK and
also in the Netherlands the national governments have set up special
‘helpdesks’ where air quality experts are employed to give targeted one-to-one
advice to local authorities.
On top of basic
Guidance, there is a wide range of work that National Governments can carry out
to help local authorities to make adequate assessments of their air quality.
These include:
Providing information
on national background concentrations of pollution so that local resources can
be focussed on identifying their locally generated components;
Disseminating
information that is held at a national level on emissions from various sources;
Making any monitoring
data collected at a national level easily available;
Ensuring that all Local
Authorities and government agencies are briefed properly with regard to
responsibilities to share information and generally behave in a co-operative
manner (e.g. National transport/highways agencies must be briefed with regard
to AQ responsibilities);
Providing training
opportunities for Local Authority officers, as once statutory responsibilities
are put in place for all Local Authorities there may well be a shortage of
experienced staff;
·
Additional powers can be granted to Local Authorities
to help them improve air quality. Some of the powers set forward in the UK
include: road-user charging, workplace parking levy, roadside emissions
testing, and prevention of emissions from parked/idling vehicles.
·
One of the final things that national
governments can do is to raise air quality on their own (and the nation’s)
agenda. By encouraging the use of public transport at a national level, and
being seen to not have a transport policy based on building new roads, national
governments can begin to create an environment where the car is not the primary
form of transport and local authorities are not working in independent
isolation to try and solve a problem that requires significant action at both a
local AND national level. |