EU Targets ‘Zero Pollution’ by 2050 to Curb Premature Deaths

John Ainger
·2 min read

(Bloomberg) -- The European Union’s executive arm laid out plans to drastically cut pollution levels across the bloc, potentially eliminating more than 70% of the 300,000 premature deaths annually over the next decade.

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The measures announced Wednesday by the European Commission include an overhaul of the bloc’s air-pollution regulation, in an effort to bring the EU closer to guidelines laid out by the World Health Organization. That includes a target to cut the annual limit of fine particulate matter -- the main pollutant -- by more than half by the end of the decade.

“We want to set the EU on a trajectory for zero pollution in the air by 2050 at the latest,” Environment Commissioner Virginijus Sinkevicius said in an interview. “Fresh air shouldn’t be a luxury in Europe.”

The proposals are expected to generate annual economic benefits of up to 121 billion euros ($120 billion) by the end of the decade from increased crop production, fewer lost work days and other factors. Citizens health issues linked to air pollution will be given the right to be compensated.

The commission also proposed stricter measures to tackle pollutants in wastewater in areas of more than 1,000 inhabitants, and will promote using it to produce biogas.

A final part of the package will protect the region’s fresh water supplies by updating the EU’s list of pollutants and boosting monitoring and warning systems. River pollution came into sharp focus in August, when algae in Poland’s Oder River was linked to one of the country’s biggest environmental disasters in years.

The increased effort to tackle pollution comes alongside the bloc’s plans to reach carbon neutrality by the middle of the century, which include legislation to phase out the combustion engine car by 2035 and speed up the rollout of pollution-free renewable energy sources.

Still, the rules will still mean that the EU falls short of WHO recommendations, a gap it hopes to narrow later in the decade, according to Sinkevicius.

(Updates to reflect the proposed measures.)

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