Deep and fundamental changes are underway both to Whitehall (government departments) and to the Ministers responsible. Please look out for my Blog posts over the next days as I summarise the changes and their implications for policy and policy delivery.
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National emission ceilings are limits for total emissions of certain air pollutants that have to be respected by Member States. The existing Directive on national emission ceilings covers limits for 2010 onwards. These ceilings have helped reduce emissions of sulphur dioxide (the cause of acid rain), ammonia, nitrogen oxides and volatile organic compounds (pollution from solvents, road vehicles, household heating and power generation systems) in recent years. The existing Directive is implemented in respect of point sources of air pollution, via air pollution permits or environmental permits that address air in individual Member States (local legislation).
However, the EU is still not reaching its long-term air quality objectives.
The European Commission’s proposed replacement Directive introduces stricter national emission ceilings. It also proposes new controls on methane and particulate, not covered by the existing Directive.
The current Directive (Directive 2001/81/EC) will apply to 2019. New national commitments for 6 pollutants were proposed to apply from 2020 and 2030. The 6 pollutants were sulphur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, ammonia, methane, particulate matter and volatile organic compounds.
On 30 June 2016, the Council and the European Parliament reached provisional agreement. This agreement (for the new NEC Directive) will set new national limits for 5 (not 6) pollutants. Methane is dropped. The national limits for 2020 to 2029 are the same as Member States are already comitted to in the revised UNECE Gothenburg Protocol. New stricter limits from 2030 are now agreed.
The European Parliament will vote in the Autumn, adoption is expected by the end of 2016.
Information is found here.
Once enacted, the new NEC Directive will be loaded into subscriber websystems, those with PPC/Multimedia Registers. Please email or reply to this post if you want the new NEC Directive loaded into your websystem.
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