From Seville to Warsaw: industrial pollution has decreased in the EU, here’s how
It is estimated that 50,000 major EU structures continue to represent about 40% of greenhouse gas emissions and are responsible for 20% of all air and water pollutants.
These pollutants have a significant impact on human health and the environment:
- Fine particles (PM2.5) can enter our lungs and blood flow, causing diseases and death.
- Nox threatens human life and biodiversity.
- Sox, heavy metals and ammonia are harmful to crops, fauna and human beings.
- Serra gases cause climate change and reduce air quality.
Strong descent from emissions
The pollution caused by industrial emissions is billion euros in costs and hundreds of thousands of premature deaths in the EU every year.
However, according to the European Environment Agency, the environmental and health costs of the European industry decreased by a third of 2012 to 2021. According to AEMA, the EU energy sector was responsible for about 80% of the total reduction.
According to the same study, this is mainly due to the adoption of new techniques and the transition to renewable energy and less polluting fuels, both changes that are largely due to the performance of the EU.
New European standards
The European Union has recently examined its directive on industrial emissions (IED 2.0), its main tool to act against the pollution of the largest factories and agricultural farms on the continent.
By virtue of this directive, the structures that meet the environmental results associated with the best available techniques (MTD) in its sector have been requested. More and more governments of the world who want to adopt the same approach are.
These actions are decided during the “Siviglia process”, a collaborative governance model in which industry, EU Member States and civil society and which take place in the Common Center for European Research (CCI) in Seville participate.
At the moment, about 80% of industrial structures meet the most allowed emission limit values. With the IED 2.0 directive, the competent authorities of the Member States must use more severe values during the review or creation of permits.
The best available techniques must also take into account more explicitly than the protection of human health and the climate of the structures.
Efforts of decarbonisation
The new standards try to obtain a further reduction of 40% of the main atmospheric pollutants from here to 2050. One of the objectives is to confirm the tendency observed in recent decades: the EU industry has grown by reducing its impact on the environment, a process known as “misunderstanding”.
Another important aspect of the magazine directive is the support for the innovation and orientation of investments to promote the ecological competitiveness of Europe based on the pact for a clean industry recently presented by the European Commission.
In Seville, a new innovation center has been created for the transformation and industrial emissions (incite) in order to identify and characterize the most promising technologies to achieve the circular economy and the neutrality of carbon.
Los Objectives of the European Union They are reaching carbon neutrality and zero pollution in 2050. A new portal allows you to follow the evolution of the levels of various pollutants in the different regions of Europe.
THE European Environment Agency Consider that the EU has completed or advanced in the application of the 33 measures announced in the “zero pollution” action plan of 2021, but that more efforts are still needed to achieve the objectives.
