News

Larissa Lockwood, Director of Clean Air

Estimated read time 5 minutes

Air pollution is an issue that people are deeply concerned about, and clean air is something that citizens want. However, gaps in public knowledge remain, and the demand for action on air pollution needs to be heard by those in charge.

 

The public want clean air  

 

Since 2018, Global Action Plan has been regularly tracking public attitudes and behaviour around air pollution through a nationally representative poll of UK adults. The latest wave of results from our Clean Air Public Insight Tracker (CAPIT) in March 2023, delivered in partnership with Opinium, finds there is a strong public mandate for action to improve air quality. 

 
The vast majority of people (93%) across the political spectrum agree that air pollution should be a government priority, and over half of the UK public are concerned about the impact of air pollution on their own health.  

 

We need to up the pressure  

 

However, while there is concern about air pollution and a desire for cleaner air, there is also a lack of public understanding about how prevalent the problem is in the UK, how bad air pollution is for our health, where air pollution comes from, and therefore what can be done to solve the problem.  
 

When asked what the biggest contributors to outdoor air pollution are, fewer than two-thirds of survey respondents recognised road transport as a source of air pollution; it is the biggest source of nitrogen oxides (NOx) pollution. Fewer than half recognised domestic burning as a source of air pollution, despite it being the largest source of PM2.5 (fine particulate matter) emissions in the UK. 

 

The majority of the UK public also don’t believe that air pollution levels are unsafe in their own neighbourhoods. Nationally, only 15% of people think that air pollution levels are high, and 39% of people think they are low. However, it is estimated that 97% of UK addresses are in areas exceeding World Health Organization guideline limits for air pollution.  

 

Furthermore, many people don’t understand the extent of the damage that air pollution can cause to their own health and that of their families. Most people (70%) identify that outdoor air pollution can affect lung health, but far fewer understand the risk to cognitive function (23%), mental health (20%), low birth weight (18%) or strokes (18%) – all of which are very real health impacts of air pollution. 

 

Air pollution is more prevalent and more damaging to our health than most people currently recognise. In order for people to be able to protect their health, make informed choices and support policy change, they need to be provided with this information.  

 

We need to tackle the knowledge-action gap and systems failure 

 

As well as improving understanding about the problem of air pollution, we also need to better understand the solutions – because air pollution is a solvable issue.  

 

Without knowing what actions could help reduce air pollution, behaviours are less likely to change and policies are less likely to be well received. But behaviours often cannot change without the policy and systems change required to support those behaviours. For while levels of public understanding about actions that can reduce air pollution are generally low, even amongst those who do have this knowledge, many don’t take these actions, exposing both a knowledge-action gap and a systemic failure to support clean air actions. 

 

Around half of respondents believe that walking or cycling instead of driving short journeys is an effective action to reduce outdoor air pollution, yet only 34% are actively doing this. Four in ten respondents believe taking public transport instead of driving short journeys is an effective action, but only two in ten are doing it. 44% of respondents believe that switching off the car engine when stationary is effective, yet only 26% are actively doing this. 

 

There’s a problem here. We know from qualitative research that a big reason for the knowledge-action gap is capability. People might want to use public transport or cycle more, but if the infrastructure doesn’t exist in their area, they cannot. This diagram highlights the gap between the knowledge that an action improves air quality, how many people are taking this action, and how many people don’t feel capable of doing so.  

We need to demonstrate the mandate for action this Clean Air Day

 

To help speed up action on air pollution, we need to tell our decision makers that we want clean air, and what measures we want in our local areas to achieve this. We also need better information about air pollution through a sustained national public engagement campaign. 

 

In lieu of this engagement campaign, Clean Air Day on 15 June is our next best opportunity. It is a moment to get our friends, family and colleagues talking and acting on air pollution, and crucially telling local decision makers what we would like to happen to improve the air quality in our local neighbourhoods. The campaign resources make it really easy to do this.  

 

Breathing dirty air is not acceptable and solutions exist – so this Clean Air Day, let’s show our support for action on clean air and demonstrate the scale of the public mandate for change. If you do one thing on the day, make your voice heard by writing a letter to your councillor using our easy template letter link, to ask them what they are doing to deliver cleaner air in your area.