2022 was the year in which the weather saved Madrid from failing to comply with European air quality regulations, according to the conclusions of the air quality balance prepared by Ecologistas en Acción, which recognizes slight advances in the reduction of some pollutants ―carbon dioxide nitrogen (NO₂)―, as the City Council celebrated with great fanfare, but which also denounces a setback in others that it
forgot
cite ―particles in suspension and ozone―.
The organization warns that when the new legislative framework enters into force this same 2023, all stations in the capital except two in green areas and outside the central core, Casa de Campo and El Pardo, will once again exceed the maximum permitted levels of NO₂ .
"There is a lot to be done so that Madrid can breathe healthy air," warns Juan Bárcena, author of the report, who calls for a drastic reduction in traffic to around half.
More information
Almeida puffs out his chest: Madrid met the air quality requirements of the European Union for the first time in 2022
Bárcena explains that the level of NO₂, the pollutant most related to traffic and 75% of these gases come from exhaust pipes, "has remained in 2022 in line with 2020 and 2021, that is, considerably lower than in the pre-pandemic years.
The difference is "very small", but it allows saving the furniture.
In the two previous years, one of the 24 stations, Plaza Elíptica, exceeded by one microgram per cubic meter of air (µg/m³) the annual average concentration limit value, set at 40. According to data from the municipal measurement network As the mayor already advanced on January 2, in 2022 no observatory exceeded the threshold, since Plaza Elíptica equaled said limit.
ECOLOGISTS IN ACTION
"Faced with the joy, complacency and the erroneous message from the City Council, it must be said that it is true that we have not failed to comply for the first time, but we have stayed just right on the limit and no one guarantees that this year it will happen again," he stresses. Ecologistas air quality coordinator.
Especially, when the factor "most determining the drop has been favorable weather" to the dispersion of gases.
The Madrid beret is formed with prolonged anticyclonic weather, since when the air tends to stabilize, it ends up causing the phenomenon of thermal inversion, that is, the higher you go, the less cold it is, contrary to normal.
Thus, the cold air, plus the polluting particles, instead of rising, remains trapped in the low areas and since the atmosphere is stable,
the contaminants are confined near the sources of emission.
This beret only disappears through rain, however little it may be, wind or reduction of emissions.
"The two months in which anticyclones are usually recorded, November and December, have been very humid, with 18 and 15 days of rain," explains Bárcena.
"In the last quarter there was no prolonged period of anticyclone with thermal inversion," the report added.
The State Meteorological Agency (Aemet) confirms, although it clarifies, this point.
Its delegate in Madrid, Miguel Ángel Pelacho, specifies that for the formation of the beret, in addition to at least two or three days of anticyclonic situation, it is necessary that the wind hardly move.
If there is, even if there are high pressures, "the thermal inversion is broken".
“In October there were many high-pressure situations, but without a persistent and intense reversal in low levels.
It also happened some days in November and the last week of December.
Only one day at the end of November was there a persistent and intense investment”, the delegate specifies.
Thus, although on some 10 occasions Aemet alerted the City Council that the conditions could be produced for the beret to be generated, in the end it only happened once.
"The favorable weather has had a very important influence, especially in December," says Pelacho, who also cites a reduction in traffic and less pollutant emissions from cars.
In addition to underlining the cloak that meteorology threw José Luis Martínez Almeida, Bárcena recalls that "compliance comes very late", because it occurs when "the framework is obsolete" and in the process of changing to stricter reference values: the The limit recommended by the WHO is already at 10 µg/m³ and the European one will be 20 µg/m³ in 2023. “Madrid will double the new EU thresholds this year”, warns the spokesman.
ECOLOGISTS IN ACTION
And the serious thing is that, compared to the meager improvement in NO₂, the data for 2022 indicate that the situation for other pollutants "has worsened significantly".
Regarding suspended particles, capable of entering the lungs and reaching the bloodstream, Bárcena clarifies that Madrid "complies with the outdatedly lax legal limits in force" in PM₁₀ ―particles with a diameter of less than 10 microns and "more harmful ” than NO₂―, but more stations than last year ―eight of the 13 observatories that measure them―, as well as the mean value of the network, exceeded the annual maximum proposed for future European legislation (20 µg/m³).
In addition, they all exceeded the WHO limit (15 µg/m³).
"Possibly, this worsening, which takes us back to 2015 levels, has to do with an apparent increase in Saharan air intrusions," says Bárcena.
In PM₂.₅ ―less than 2.5 microns―, the situation is “similar” to that of 2021: one of the eight stations that register them, Plaza Elíptica, exceeded the one indicated as the annual limit value in the future European framework (10 µg/m³) and all far exceeded that of the WHO (5 µg/m³).
Neither has the situation improved regarding tropospheric ozone (O₃), called
bad
ozone .
During 2022, three of the 12 stations that take it into account exceeded the figure allowed by the regulations for the eight-hour target value (120 µg/m³) on more than 25 occasions.
In addition, five registered exceedances of the information threshold for the population (180 µg/m³ for one hour), when there had been no warning in the previous two years.
In the opinion of Ecologists, the increase in ozone pollution peaks "was undoubtedly related to the strong waves of summer heat."
ECOLOGISTS IN ACTION
Faced with this situation, Ecologists claims to reduce traffic "by the bag, around half."
“It is being done in the rest of the big European cities, which were condemned before Spain and which gave an important response.
London launched an
ultra low emission
zone , Paris the city of 15 minutes and in Amsterdam thousands of parking spaces have been withdrawn, while in Madrid the City Council has loosened conditions in Central Madrid and plans two large car parks, with 1,800 seats at the Bernabéu and 800 at the Niño Jesús”, laments Barcena.
To make Madrid stop being a cochista, "it is necessary to make Madrid Central more restrictive and expand, carry out a reduction of lanes in 18 major axes as was already done with the Gran Vía and as is contemplated in the Air Quality Plan of Madrid or Plan A, which is not repealed”.
It is also necessary to replicate "Central Madrid by districts, adapting it to the needs", reduce the spaces to leave the car and cut off the entrance of vehicles to the capital.
According to the latest municipal study available, with data from 2017, 43.5% of the vehicles that circulate through the city arrive in Madrid daily from the periphery.
Ecologistas proposes tidying up the Cercanías network, the implementation of HOV buses at all accesses (but without widening the road) and establishing an entrance toll, as already in London, Stockholm, Milan... And, finally, "bet on truly and decidedly by bike lanes”.
"Madrid is light years away from any European capital, but also from Barcelona, Seville and Valencia," criticizes Bárcena.
The cost in lives and income of pollution
In their report, Ecologists cites the Institute for Global Health, which estimates that 3,700 deaths a year could be avoided in the capital –2,010 from NO₂ and 1,693 from PM₂.₅– if pollution were reduced dramatically.
Julio Díaz, PhD in physics and research professor at the Carlos III Health Institute, differentiates between short-term effects, which result in admissions to the emergency room, and long-term effects, which lead to lung cancer and aggravation of chronic diseases.
The short-term limit, 24 hours, does not exist in current European legislation, which only contemplates the long-term, which Madrid has complied with.
“That it adjusts to the annual values does not mean that there are no peaks that have a clear impact on health, because it is well above what the WHO sets and because the impact of NO₂ is linear and without a safety threshold.
It has an effect on 39, on 38 and on 20 ″, he recalls.
In the short term, his body attributes 8,200 annual incomes to this contaminant, mainly for respiratory causes between 2003 and 2018, which have cost health 120 million euros a year.
With data from 2000 to 2009, it claims 1,100 lives a year.
"The air in Madrid cannot be breathed, neither in 2021 nor in 2022," says the expert.
As for PM₁₀, they cause 280 deaths per year.
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