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Brussels residents take court action over air pollution
Five Brussels residents, backed by the environmental NGO Client Earth, have taken the regional government to court claiming a lack of information and action on air pollution in the capital.
During the first court hearing, on Friday, complainants called for government officials to more effectively distribute information about the health risks of potentially dangerous emissions.
“Family doctors, school principals, parents - do they really know the health effects of these pollutants?" asked Lievin Chemin, one of the claimants. The group say they are acting on behalf and for the benefit of the rest of the city's population.
The need for fully functioning air quality monitoring stations also arose during the hearing, as three of the stations, located in the busiest areas of the city, have been out of action for more than seven years.
According to the claimants, the standards of the air monitoring network fail to comply with the requirements of the European Air Quality Directive.
"European legislation requires the government to measure the air quality where the population is likely to be exposed to the highest concentrations, but the stations at Avenue de la Couronne, Arts-Loi and Rue Belliard, the areas that have the highest concentrations of NO2 in Brussels, are closed," the claimants' lawyers said. "They must be reopened and the measurement data should be made public."
However, the complainants did acknowledge the positive efforts of the Region in its inauguration of the Air, Climate and Energy plan, which seeks to establish a low emissions area that will be inaccessible to the most polluting diesel vehicles.
A final judgement will be made on 10 February.
Comments
The ONLY solution is to get rid of this bloody Petrol used in cars : Taxis should ALL be electric as an example, etc.
You couldn't make it up. Three monitoring stations closed for 7 years???? Where are the maintenance contracts, no one to follow up, you have to be kidding! We will always have cars BUT the city could: electric or hybrid buses, hybrid taxis, allow company cars only for the very top executives, do away with diesel, trams which run more frequently, stop the train and metro strikes somehow (privatise it), and people would not use their cars so much therefore reducing pollution.
Take a drive outside of Brussels weekends or after business hours. Enjoy seeing all the smokestacks shooting hazardous substances into the air. Belgium is still the wild west when it comes to pollution monitoring and the enforcement of any anti-pollution laws. It will only become a priority if politicians or their families/close associates feel they are being affected directly.