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Success stories within the road transport sector on reducing greenhouse gas emission and producing ancillary benefits
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Climate for a transport change. TERM 2007: indicators tracking transport and environment in the European Union
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Giving Europe more breathing space
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Air pollution has been one of Europe’s main concerns since the late 1970s. Over the last few decades, the rapid growth in industry and increased reliance on cars and public transport has contributed to a rapid decline in air quality, from smog and acid rain to asthma and other respiratory diseases.
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Multimedia
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The fourth assessment: Presentation of the report at the Belgrade conference
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Subtitled movie of the speech hold by Executive Director of the EEA Jacqueline McGlade during the presentation of the 4th pan-European assessment at the UNECE 6th Мinisterial Conference "Environment for Europe", in Belgrade, 10th of October 2007.
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Archive: the Belgrade ministerial conference
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Videos and interviews
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Transport and environment: on the way to a new common transport policy
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Annual European Community LRTAP Convention Emission Inventory 1990-2004
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Transport and environment: facing a dilemma - TERM 2005
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Indicators tracking transport and environment in the European Union
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Air pollution at street level in European cities
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Air quality and health
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(Transcription of audio on video)
Europe loses 200 million working days a year to air pollution-related illness.
The air pollutants that affect the respiratory system are ozone, nitrogen oxides, sulphur dioxide, and particulate matter.
The breathing in of fine particulate matter significantly increases the numbers of deaths from cardiovascular and cardiopulmonary diseases. Over a third of particulate matter comes from domestic wood stoves, another third from industrial sources, and the remainder from transport and agriculture.
Ground level ozone, one of the components of smog and produced through vehicle exhaust and industrial emissions, also has severe implications for respiratory health.
The European Commission Clean Air for Europe programme found that in the year 2000 around 350,000 people were dying prematurely due to outdoor pollution of fine particulate matter alone.
Although levels of particulate matter and ozone have both been reducing in recent decades, estimates indicate that 20 million Europeans suffer from respiratory problems.
Source: The European environment - State and outlook 2005
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Expert interview: transport and environment
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Peder Jensen, EEA transport and the environment expert.
Transport is harmful to the environment in many different ways. The most visible effect of transport is some of the emissions that we see: we can see the exhaust gas coming out of a car and at certain times it's very dirty and very dark. It's a very visible way where it's harming the environment, harming the air that we are all breathing. But there are also effects that are not quite so visible - when we are burning fuel in our engines we are emitting a lot of different gases and some of them are invisible greenhouse gases that help trap the heat in the atmosphere to get the earth to go warmer.
One of the other important effects of transport is the noise impact. Noise means that people have a hard time sleeping, that they therefore don't get the rest that they need. It also affects the animals, disturbs their life, if roads or railroads run through nature areas it therefore means a reduced quality of life for both animals and people.
Finally, transport infrastructure has a tendency to fragment natural habitats for animals. Lots of animals are disturbed by roads, they cannot cross the road, they are either scared off by the noise or they can't find ways to cross these different infrastructures and this means that the habitats they are living in don't work so well for their reproduction.
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