Ground level ozone is not yesterday's problem

Existing ozone controls are simply not enough – the message from the report by the Royal Society and UK national academic of science is clear.

Red alder leaf, showing discolouration caused by ozone pollution

We are failing to reduce air pollutant ground level ozone to a low enough level to maintain human health and protect the environment - and climate change is only going to make things harder.

Professor David Fowler, Chair of the Royal Society’s ground level ozone working group said: “Ozone is a global traveller and one of the more pervasive of air pollutants. Weather systems and jet streams transport ozone, and the pollutants that lead to its formation, often far from their point of origin. Here in the UK, for example, we receive most of our ozone from outside of Europe.”

Although policies in the EU, Japan and America have successfully reduced the occurrence of very high peaks of ozone caused by periods of hot weather, UK and other parts of the Northern Hemisphere suffer from background concentrations of ozone that have increased by six percent. This increase is thought to be effecting health, food crops and the environment. In 2003 an estimated 1582 UK deaths were attributed to ozone affecting children, the elderly and asthmatics who are particularly vulnerable to ozone affects on the lungs, nose and eyes.

Ozone is formed when sunlight reacts with pollutants and naturally occurring chemicals in the atmosphere. With the onset of climate change, increase pollutants will multiply the ozone problem.

Professor Fowler said: “A coordinated global strategy bringing ozone into international frameworks for controlling air pollutants and greenhouse gases is required.”

By Leila Sattary