LONDON: Leaked documents show the UK is pushing for watered-down EU air pollution laws to be weakened further, arguing they would cause pit closures leading to substantial job losses and the need to import coal.
The EU rules could help curb toxic nitrogen oxides (NOx) and sulphur dioxide (SO2) emissions, although campaigners criticised them following revelations that they were partly drafted by the same companies they were meant to regulate.
But a confidential government submission to Brussels, seen by the Guardian, says that the UK would have to import coal from Russia, Colombia and South Africa to meet the new standards, because British coal has such a high sulphur content.
This “would therefore lead to the loss of the principal market for UK coal and the closure of the UK’s coal mines,” the paper says. “The mine closures would also lead to substantial job losses – directly and indirectly within the supply chain – in areas of the UK with significant levels of unemployment and socio-economic deprivation.”
However, studies suggest that air pollution hits poor people in urban areas and ethnic minorities hardest, and its true early death toll could be even higher than the statistics suggest.
