Tell your Environment Ministers we need stronger air pollution standards | Stronger national air pollution standards

Tell your Environment Ministers we need stronger air pollution standards

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Email your state or territory Environment Minister and let them know that Australia needs stronger health-based air pollution standards. Federal Environment Minister, Sussan Ley will be CC'd on all emails. Add a personal message and tell them where you're from.

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Subject:

RE: Review of national air pollution standards

Dear Minister,

I am writing to you about the review of Australia's national air pollution standards for sulfur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide.

Australia's current air pollution standards are seriously outdated. We need to create new health-based air pollution standards and this review represents a once-in-a-generation opportunity to improve air quality in Australia.

The standards for sulfur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide were set in 1998 and have not been reviewed for 21 years, leaving Australian standards well behind the United States, the European Union and China.

Australia’s standards currently exceed all the World Health Organisation’s recommended thresholds, which were set in 2005. International evidence and the world’s understanding of the health burden caused by air pollution has significantly advanced since this time.

Air pollution already leads to more deaths per year than the national road toll and worsens asthma, respiratory illness, and lung and heart diseases. Children, pregnant women, the elderly, and people living near industrial pollution or busy roads are the most at risk.

I call on you to advocate for and adopt world-leading health-based air pollution standards and monitoring requirements, as have been proposed by many of Australia’s key health groups.

This review is an opportunity for Australia to have the best standards in the world. This includes three key changes that would help improve the health of Australians:

• Bringing Australia's 24-hour standard for sulfur dioxide into line with the World Health Organisation value of 8 parts per billion.

• Making the annual average for nitrogen dioxide a compliance standard of 9 parts per billion. The Australian Child Health Air Pollution Study involved 2630 children aged between seven and eleven, from 55 schools across Australia within two kilometres of an air monitor. While there is no known safe threshold for nitrogen dioxide, the study found that air with more than 9ppb of nitrogen dioxide causes asthma. It can also affect child lung and brain development.

• Expanding the air monitoring network to protect communities at risk from air pollution. Air pollution monitoring data should be publicly available, with access to both real-time and historical data.

Australia has been waiting for these standards to be updated for over a decade. I urge you to ensure that new world-leading health-based clean air standards are adopted in 2020.

Thank you for taking the time to consider my email and for standing up to protect our health from the harms of air pollution.

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