U.K. Doctors Call for Phase-Out of Diesel Vehicles

Nearly 300 U.K. doctors, nurses and other health professionals are calling on the government to remove diesel vehicles from the road as soon as possible because they are causing a health emergency.

The newly formed group is campaigning for greater awareness of the health impacts of diesel emissions and for immediate action to reduce the number of diesel vehicles.

It sent a letter to Prime Minister Theresa May stating a government-led national diesel reduction initiative would represent a major public health advance.

“We are writing as doctors, nurses and health professionals from across the U.K. to ask for government action to remove the current fleet of diesel vehicles from the road as soon as possible, with a particular focus on towns and cities,” the letter states.

It notes the government’s own chief medical officer’s view that diesel vehicles should be phased out.

“We are encouraged that you said in Parliament that ‘nobody in this house doubts the importance of the issue of air quality,’” the letter states.

It highlights what it calls the growing evidence regarding a range of health effects of nitrogen-dioxide and black-carbon (soot) emissions.

It says in infants and children there is strong evidence that exposure to fossil-fuel-derived air pollution stunts lung growth.

Without urgent action, emissions from diesel vehicles will cause irreversible lung damage to the current generation of children, the letter warns.

“In London, we know that diesel engines are a major and unnecessary cause of air pollution along our roads,” says Jonathan Grigg, a founding member of the group and professor of pediatric respiratory and environmental medicine at Queen Mary University of London.

“Cutting diesel emissions would therefore have an immediate impact on children’s personal exposure, and improve their long-term health. In children, combining lower pollution exposure with active travel would be a major public health advance – and must be done as soon as possible.”

U.K. Faculty of Public Health President John Middleton says nitrogen-oxide emissions breached legal limits in London in the first week of January, and recent figures show sales of diesel cars have reached an all-time high.

“Diesel is the primary source of nitrogen dioxide in urban areas and is linked to health effects that begin before birth and extend throughout the life course, from childhood lung development and asthma, to increased risk of heart disease, stroke, lung cancer and dementia,” Middleton says.

“It is time for diesel to be recognized as the health emergency that it is.”

The group is asking May to focus on diesel because road transport generates 45% of total NO2 emissions in Greater London.

“Modeling has shown that, alongside other measures, the percentage of cars that are diesel will need to be reduced from 57% to 5% of the total, if Greater London is to become compliant with legal limits on NO2 emissions,” the letter says.

The letter notes there are 585 Air Quality Management Areas in the U.K., meaning the majority of local authorities now have a statutory duty to take action on illegal levels of air pollution in at least one area.

“However, the options available to local authorities when creating clean-air zones or seeking to tackle AQMAs do not include powers to ban the single biggest source of pollution – diesel vehicles,” it says.