COPENHAGEN, March 26, 2020 (BSS/AFP) – Italy’s air quality has improved
since the country went into coronavirus lockdown, the European Environment
Agency (EEA) said Wednesday, a trend seen elsewhere in Europe as well.
In Milan, Italy’s economic capital, the concentration of nitrogen dioxide
(NO2), a gas emitted mainly from vehicles and power stations and which can
cause inflammation of the respiratory system, has fallen by 24 percent in the
last four weeks, compared with the preceeding four weeks, the EEA said.
The week starting on March 16 alone saw a 21 percent reduction compared
with the same week one year earlier.
In Rome, NO2 levels have fallen between 26 and 35 percent for the same four
weeks, and in Bergamo, Italy’s hardest hit city, the reduction was 47
percent.
The lockdown in Italy began in certain northern areas on February 23 before
it was extended nationwide on March 9. As of 1100 GMT Wednesday, Italy had
recorded more 69,000 cases with 6,820 deaths.
EEA said its “data confirm large decreases in air pollutant
concentrations… largely due to reduced traffic and other activities,
especially in major cities under lockdown measures.”
Other parts of Europe have seen similar effects, in Spain for example where
NO2 concentration has fallen by 55 percent in Barcelona and 41 percent in
Madrid, on a 12-month comparison.
In the Spanish capital, average NO2 concentration has fallen by 56 percent
from one week to the next.
NO2 levels have halved in some other parts of the continent.
But the French air quality monitoring agency cautioned that the lockdown
had not led to marked declines in so-called PM2.5 and PM10 particles, the
smallest and most harmful air pollutants, owing to increased home heating and
continued agricultural activity.
And the EEA insisted that the reductions in emissions do not solve the
issue of climate change.
“The current crisis and its multiple impacts on our society work against
what we are trying to achieve, which is a just and well-managed transition
towards a resilient and sustainable society,” the agency’s director Hans
Bruyninckx said in the statement.
In an comment to AFP last week the director said that “making Europe
climate neutral requires continuous emission reductions over a long period.”