Air pollution has risen up the political agenda in the UK in recent years as medical professionals have joined forces with environmental campaigners to raise public awareness of the issue and put pressure on the government to solve it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A large portion of the blame has been laid on diesel cars, sales of which were encouraged by previous governments because diesel engines emit fewer greenhouse gases than petrol ones. Between 2000 and 2016, the proportion of cars powered by diesel rose from 12.9% to 39.1%, while that of diesel light goods vehicles rose from 76.9% to 96.2%, according to government data<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The government\u2019s latest headline-grabbing policy is a ban on all conventional petrol and diesel cars by 2040 to deal with illegal levels of nitrogen dioxide (NO2<\/sub><\/a>) that have put it in breach of the European Union\u2019s Air Quality Directive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Its strategy<\/a> tasks local councils with finding solutions to tackle NO2<\/sub> hotspots. Draft plans are required by March 2018.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The government will provide \u00a3255 million (2.2 billion yuan) to councils to support them with implementing their plans, and will also set up a Clean Air Fund to help pay for measures such as changing road layouts, removing traffic lights and speed humps or upgrading bus fleets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The government has been taken to court over air pollution three times by legal campaigners ClientEarth<\/a>, which has successfully argued that its proposals so far are totally inadequate and too slow to deal with the scale of the issue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Each time, the speed of implementation of the government\u2019s proposed policies has proven to be a key issue. The directive mandates member states to reduce NO2<\/sub> to within legal limits \u201cin the shortest time possible\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the first case, heard at the Supreme Court in 2015, five judges ruled that the government must take \u201cimmediate action\u201d to tackle NO2<\/sub>. Under the government\u2019s proposals, parts of the UK including London and Birmingham would not have achieved legal limits on NO2<\/sub> until after 2030.<\/p>\n\n\n\nUK government in court<\/h2>\n\n\n\n