Category: News

The consequences of climate crisis are of global significance and emphasize the importance of the issues discussed during the previous CSP4Climate conference. The measures needed be taken should be discussed and agreed upon internationally since the passing of the time has confirmed the urgency to address the climate crisis in parallel to the current pandemic crisis, not only for the Mediterranean but worldwide. Due to abundant available solar energy in the Mediterranean and Middle East, Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) Technologies could play a very important role in the decarbonization of the Energy Sector. The challenges of CSP and the advancements of renewable energies will be discussed in conjunction to mitigation and adaptation measures through renewable energies. Furthermore, challenges and opportunities that emerge from the European environmental and cost-effective policies and measures will be presented and debated. CSP4Climate conference intends to provide a stimulating dialog among leading Policy Makers, Scientists, and Industry Leaders from around the world, while updates and improvements on Concentrated...

Photo: Court of Justice of the European Union The European Commission referred two member countries from the Balkans to the Court of Justice of the European Union for breaches in air pollution. Greece and Bulgaria don’t comply with limit values for particulate matter PM10. The EU also reprimanded them for their track record in environmental protection and also called on 13 member states and the UK to submit long-term building renovation strategies. The European Commission said it launched procedures before the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) against Bulgaria and Greece, citing excessive air pollution. The same judicial institution ruled in May against Romania over air pollution in its capital city. Of note, Bucharest and Sofia are in the group of European cities with the highest health-related social costs of air pollution. The government in Sofia failed to ensure full compliance with the court’s judgement from April 2017, which found that it had breached its obligations under the EU Directive 2008/50/EC...

National measures to cut air pollution would benefit from stronger links with climate action, according to the European Environment Agency (EEA). In their latest briefing, the EEA presented an overview of the latest policies and measures reported by Member States to tackle air pollution, as required under the National Emission reduction Commitments (NEC) Directive.  Policies to reduce nitrogen oxides (NOX), particulate matter (PM2.5) and ammonia (NH3) mainly focus on the agriculture, transport and energy sectors.  However, the briefing shows that the Member States have identified about one-third of their air pollution policies should have links with national policies to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions, which are reported under the Regulation on a mechanism for monitoring and reporting greenhouse gas emissions.  According to the Briefing, it is vital to seek coherence across climate change mitigation and air pollution.  Promoting consistency in reporting policies and measures on air pollution, energy and climate change can reduce red tape, foster policy coherence and support the identification of synergies across efforts...

Globally, November 2020 was the warmest November on record, by a clear margin. For Europe, the month was the joint second warmest on record. Temperatures were most above the 1981-2010 average over a large region covering much of northern Europe, Siberia and the Arctic Ocean, while temperatures were most below average over central Asia and West Antarctica. November 2020 was warmer than the 1981-2010 average for the month over almost all of  Europe. Temperatures were considerably higher than average over the Alps and the north of the continent. Norway had its joint warmest November in a data series reaching back to 1900. Sweden and Finland also saw records broken. Conditions were close to or a little cooler than average only in parts of the south-east of the continent. Temperatures were exceptionally high for November over a large region covering much of Siberia, the Arctic Ocean and bordering coastal seas, extending into western and northern Alaska and the far north-west of Canada. Temperatures...

Finally, experts are addressing the contagious elephant in the room: How to actually make indoor air safe in the age of the coronavirus. This week a top cohort of German scientists released surprisingly straight-forward indoor air guidelines to prevent COVID-19 spread. They are: N95 masks. “They should be mandatory in many sectors, instead of the simple hygiene masks,” write the authors.Window ventilation. The more, the better. It’s effective and cheap.Exhaust ventilation systems. The air must be extracted upwards through an overhead exhaust suction, and appropriately filtered if recirculated. The group advises that these ventilation systems be installed immediately in places like classrooms, restaurants, hospitals, buses, and trains.Air purification systems. The use of appropriate purifiers for the size and space are critical. Portable is fine.CO2 monitoring. The results are proxy for how well ventilation is working. If CO2 levels are extremely low in buildings like museums, for example, reopening could be reasonable.No fans. Ceiling fans recirculate air, likely keeping virus particles in the air for...

Source: https://www.euronews.com/living/2020/09/02/inside-the-innovative-eco-school-designed-to-remove-air-pollution  By Doloresz Katanich  02/09/2020  Forest School in Pune   -   Copyright  Nudes - Nuru Karim  This 'Forest School' design was the winning entry for a competition held to create a new educational facility in Pune, a city in western India. The design comes from architecture studio Nudes who specialise in blending social, cultural and environmental aspects in a building. The city of Pune has witnessed dramatic urban growth as well as worsening air quality in the last decade. The level of pollutants regularly exceeds both Indian standards and World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines. The design of the 'Forest School' tackles this problem. The vertical garden serves to purify the air from pollutants and chemicals and turn carbon dioxide into oxygen. The healthy school environment is topped off by a rooftop “infinity” cycling track. The school will teach children from an early age, providing hands-on learning about the environment and climate change....

Source: https://www.euronews.com/2020/08/31/european-cities-race-to-clean-the-air  By Copernicus    31/08/2020  London view from St Paul's Cathedral   Copyright  Getty Images Mounting concerns about public health are pushing cities to scrub their air clean. But just how easy is breathing fresh air again? Italy’s economic powerhouse hadn’t felt so clean in years. As the novel coronavirus put the country and the hard-hit region of Lombardia under lockdown, muting the human and economic buzz, it also unlocked an unlikely reality: cities with better quality. Above the Earth, satellites confirmed the slash in air pollutants, as they took snapshots of the region’s clearer skies, including Milan’s, infamous for its dangerous air pollution levels, just as many other places in the world. This March, nitrous oxide was down 38%, particulate matter 14%, and benzene 33% lower, compared to the same month between 2016-2019, data from Lombardia’s environment agency showed. Madrid, Lisbon, and other cities in Europe also breathed fresher air through their lockdowns. But this silver lining to the global health emergency turns to be short-lived as...

Source: https://airqualitynews.com/2020/08/25/exposure-to-air-pollution-may-increase-risk-of-covid-19-death/ 25.08.2020 Long-term exposure to particulate matter (PM2.5) may increase the risk of contracting and dying from COVID-19 by up to 7%, according to researchers at the Office for National Statistics (ONS).  In order to understand the link between long-term exposure to air pollution and COVID-19, researchers at ONS developed a detailed statistical model controlling for factors such as levels of deprivation, ethnicity, population density, public health and pre-existing health conditions. The researchers considered exposure to ozone, fine particulate matter (PM2.5) and nitrogen dioxide (NO2). They did not account for changes in pollution levels since the pandemic began. At the start of the pandemic, infection rates were highest in cities where air pollution is also high. Up to the week when lockdown began, 45% of deaths in England had occurred in London, however by the week ending June 12, this had fallen to 18%. As the virus spread across the country, the correlation between air pollution exposure and COVID-19 mortality decreased. While deaths rates have generally been...

Source: http://airqualitynews.com/2020/08/21/air-pollution-linked-to-diabetes/  21.08.2020 Exposure to air pollution may increase the risk of developing diabetes, according to a new study published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation.  To test the impact that air pollution has on health, researchers from the University of Cardiovascular Research Institute created an environment that mimicked a polluted day in New Delhi or Beijing, by concentrating fine particulate matter pollution (PM2.5).  Using a mouse model study, the researchers observed the health impacts of three groups, a control group receiving clean filtered air, a group exposed to polluted air for 24 weeks and a group fed a high-fat diet.  The researchers found that being exposed to air pollution was comparable to eating a high-fat diet. Both air pollution and the high-fat diet group showed insulin resistance and abnormal metabolism – just like you would see in a pre-diabetic state.  These changes were associated with changes in the epigenome, a layer of control that can turn on and off thousands of genes, representing a critical buffer...