LowCVP MD gives evidence to EFRA Select Committee
Wed 13 January 2016
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The LowCVP Managing Director Andy Eastlake was called to give evidence this week to the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) Select Committee's inquiry into air quality. He was asked to comment on how the climate change and air quality agendas can be most effectively brought together.
The Committee is currently consulting on how the UK can meet EU Directive requirements for limiting emissions of nitrogen dioxide. It also has a wider role in tackling the harmful levels of many other pollutants emitted by the transport, energy and industrial sectors as well as from households and farming.
The Commitee was also taking evidence from Mike Hawes, Chief Executive of the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders and Paul Willis, Managing Director of Volkswagen Group UK.
The LowCVP MD was invited to provide evidence, in particular, on the contribution alternative technologies can make to reducing vehicle emissions (both CO2 and local air pollutants) and to look at the barriers to their uptake. He was also asked to examine any trade-offs between cutting CO2 and reducing local pollutants.
The LowCVP supplied more detailed written evidence to the Committee following the Oral evidence session which can be viewed on Parliament TV.
In a related development, The Guardian reported this week that UK environment ministers are to face a legal challenge from ClientEarth which aims to make them speed up plans to reduce dangerous urban air pollution.
ClientEarth last year forced the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) to come up with fresh plans to tackle NO2 levels in British cities that are in excess of legal limits imposed by the European Union. The NGO warned that it would seek urgent court action because thousands of people’s lives were at risk if present government plans were not strengthened. (See link)
Note: The LowCVP, in collaboration with the Clean Air Alliance, is holding a Parliamentary Seminar and Reception on Tuesday March 1st in the House of Commons. For more details on the event - 'Lower Carbon, Cleaner Air: Joining up the climate change and air quality agendas' - please click here.
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