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Air Quality Expert Group

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Air Quality Expert Group (AQEG) is an official committee of scientific advisers who provide independent advice on air pollutants to the UK government's Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra).[1] The group is drawn mostly from academia and consists of about a dozen atmospheric chemists and other environmental scientists.[2] AQEG also advises government officials and ministers on air quality issues, suggests priority areas for future work, and advises on changes in international policy.[3] AQEG was created in 2001,[4] consolidating the work of a number of previous advisory groups including the Quality of Urban Air Review Group, Airborne Particles Expert Group, and Expert Panel on Air Quality Standards.[citation needed]

AQEG's recent work has included reports on ozone trends, exhaust emissions from road transport, air pollution changes during the COVID-19 pandemic, agricultural air pollution, and impacts of shipping on air quality.[5]

Membership

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Alastair Lewis of the National Centre for Atmospheric Science and University of York has chaired the committee since 2019;[5] from 2009 to 2019, it was chaired by Paul Monks of the University of Leicester;[6] from 2001 to 2009 it was chaired by Mike Pilling of the University of Leeds. Other notable members have included Roy Harrison, Helen ApSimon, Martin Williams, and David Fowler.[5][6]

Recent work

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AQEG investigates and publishes reports on all aspects of air pollution, except its health impacts, which are the remit of a separate advisory group, Committee on the Medical Effects of Air Pollutants (COMEAP). Its expert members are frequently asked to comment on news stories, such as pollution from wood burners,[7] the links between COVID-19 and air pollution,[8][9] and the effectiveness of the British government's attempts to meet World Health Organization pollution guidelines,[10] and its own reports often make headlines.

In 2011, a report by AQEG argued that biofuels "have little effect on emissions of air quality pollutants".[11] In 2015, another of its investigations concluded that fracking increases air pollution.[12] Two years later, it reported that the particle pollution from a single eco-friendly wood-burning stove could be six times higher than that from a heavy goods vehicle.[13] In 2018, the group investigated natural vegetation (greater use of plants and trees) and found that it cannot offer a real solution to urban air pollution.[14] Another 2018 report found that agricultural ammonia emissions could be reduced by about a half simply through better management of manure.[15] In 2019, AQEG found that pollution from a vehicle's tyres can sometimes be 1000 worse than its tailpipe emissions.[16][17] The same year, it reported that solvents in household and personal care products were a significant part of UK VOC emissions.[18] Also in 2019, AQEG warned that, although electric cars produce zero tailpipe emissions, they still produce significant air pollution from their brakes, tyres, and road surface wear and that: "No legislation is currently in place to specifically limit or reduce these particles".[19][20]

During the COVID-19 pandemic, AQEG actively investigated connections between the virus and air pollution,[21] and looked into the effects of lockdowns on air pollution.[22][23]

In 2022, the group drew further attention to pollution from wood-burning stoves, which, in the UK, now produce more particle pollution than road traffic.[7]

AQEG also tests ideas for tackling pollution. In 2016, it built a computer model to test what would happen to London's air pollution if photocatalytic paints (which turn harmful chemicals into more benign ones), sometimes touted as a solution to air quality problems, were applied to every surface in the city.[24] This concluded that nitrogen dioxide pollution would be reduced by less than 1 percent.[25][26]

See also

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References

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  1. ^ "About the Air Quality Expert Group". UK Air. Department for Environment Food & Rural Affairs. Retrieved 23 December 2021.
  2. ^ "Air Quality Expert Group: Membership". gov.uk. UK Government. Retrieved 23 December 2021.
  3. ^ Barrett, Thomas (4 June 2019). "Defra looking for new expert group chair". Air Quality News. Retrieved 21 February 2022.
  4. ^ "Air Quality Expert Group: Appointment of expert members: Information pack for applicants" (PDF). Cabinet Office. UK Government. 16 August 2021. Retrieved 8 April 2022.
  5. ^ a b c "Air Quality Expert Group: Publications". UK Air. Department for Environment Food & Rural Affairs. Retrieved 23 December 2021.
  6. ^ a b "Tribute to Professor Martin Williams". UK Air. Department for Environment Food & Rural Affairs. Retrieved 24 December 2021.
  7. ^ a b Carrington, Damian. "Wood burners emit more particle pollution than traffic, UK data shows". The Guardian. Retrieved 21 February 2022.
  8. ^ Shrestha, Priyanka (6 September 2021). "Air pollution linked to severe cases of COVID-19 and hospitalisations, London researchers find". Energy Live News. Retrieved 21 February 2022.
  9. ^ O'Brien, Amy (4 September 2021). "London pollution: The worse the air you breathe, the worse your Covid symptoms". City A.M. Retrieved 21 February 2022.
  10. ^ Webster, Ben (23 September 2021). "Tighter air pollution guidelines leave British rules in the dust - clean air for all". The Times. p. 4.
  11. ^ "E10 fuel will not reduce air pollution". Evening Standard. 1 August 2017. p. 26.
  12. ^ Carrington, Damian (2 August 2018). "Buried UK government report finds fracking increases air pollution". The Guardian. Retrieved 21 February 2022.
  13. ^ Carrington, Damian (9 October 2021). "'Eco' wood stoves emit 750 times more pollution than an HGV, study shows". The Guardian. p. 7. Retrieved 21 February 2022.
  14. ^ Date, Will (30 July 2018). "Plants and trees "not the solution" to air pollution in cities". Air Quality News. Retrieved 21 February 2022.
  15. ^ Fuller, Gary (14 January 2022). "Could a global farmers' assembly help cut agriculture pollution?". The Guardian. p. 40. Retrieved 21 February 2022.
  16. ^ Evans, Rachel (11 March 2020). "Pollution from tire wear 1,000 times worse than exhaust emissions". Tire Technology International. Retrieved 21 February 2022.
  17. ^ "Tyre pollution 1000 times worse than tailpipe emissions". Fleet News. 6 March 2020. Retrieved 21 February 2022.
  18. ^ Leake, Jonathan (17 November 2019). "Homes polluted by toxic scents in cleaning spray". The Sunday Times. p. 16.
  19. ^ "UK expert group focuses attention on non-exhaust emissions from road traffic as regulatory concern". Green Car Congress. Retrieved 21 February 2022.
  20. ^ Webster, Ben (29 July 2019). "Electric cars are a threat to clean air, claims cycling tsar". The Times. Retrieved 21 February 2022. The government's air quality expert group said this month that particles from tyres, brakes and road surfaces made up about two thirds of all particulate matter from road transport and would continue to increase even as more cars were run on electric power.
  21. ^ Webster, Ben. "Clean air could have saved 6,000 lives, experts claim". The Times. Retrieved 21 February 2022. Alastair Lewis, professor of atmospheric chemistry at the University of York and chairman of the government's air quality expert group, said the study may have inflated the effects of air pollution on coronavirus deaths by not properly accounting for "confounding influences like deprivation, ethnicity or the extent of transmission of the virus.
  22. ^ Barrett, Thomas (1 Jul 2020). "Interview: Professor Alastair Lewis". Air Quality News. Retrieved 21 February 2022.
  23. ^ "Huge drop in air pollution in first month of coronavirus lockdown". Telegraph. 2 Jul 2020. Retrieved 21 February 2022.
  24. ^ Woodford, Chris (2021). Breathless: Why Air Pollution Matters and How it Affects You. London: Icon. p. 256. ISBN 9781785787102.
  25. ^ Fuller, Gary (2018). The Rising Global Threat of Air Pollution – and How We Can Fight Back. London: Melville House. p. 204. ISBN 9781911545514.
  26. ^ Vaughan, Adam (9 May 2016). "UK government accused of pursuing 'gimmicks' to tackle air pollution". The Guardian. Retrieved 21 February 2022.
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