Clean air - Danish efforts
Preface
Pure air is a human right, as are clean drinking water and food. Polluted air is hazardous and has negative impacts not only on Man, but also on soil, water areas, plants and animals and Man.
Unfortunately it is not possible to secure air that is completely free of pollution. Human activities will always put pressure on our atmospheric environment to a larger or smaller extent. But recent decades have shown that it is possible to limit the pressure significantly.
Within the UN Economic Committee for Europe, UNECE, the agreement on the Gothenburg Protocol is a large step towards limitation of air pollution in the whole of Europe. The protocol will result in less disease and fewer premature deaths due to poor air quality. And it will benefit the fauna and flora that is today exposed to acidification and eutrophication.
The protocol is a good example of a modern, rational and economically efficient strategy. Clear-cut targets for the environmental improvements expected have been set up. The emissions will be reduced most where action is cheapest and has the largest effect. And several compounds are regulated at the same time, to account for their comprehensive impact. Actions are taken in international co-operation and on a scientific basis.
On the occasion of the Danish ratification of the protocol in June 2002 the Ministry of the Environment publishes this leaflet in order to give a broad outline of the Danish and international efforts to combat air pollution and present the state of our atmospheric environment. Although we have made great efforts, not all problems are solved. We must put greater resources into the investigation of the health aspect of particles - and especially the fine particles - in the air. But also other pressures, e.g. nitrogen and dioxin, must be reduced.
In the global perspective we have made great efforts to fully outphase the ozone depleting compounds in Denmark, but internationally Denmark has still an important role to play.
The greatest challenge we are facing today is, however, the threat of climate changes caused by human activities. All observations indicate that the global population - with its emissions of greenhouse gasses - influences the global climate and has started a process whose longsighted consequences we can only guess. The Danish Government has met this challenge with a very ambitious target set out in the Kyoto Protocol under the UN Climate Convention. Even though we have come very far in relation to a number of issues, the many different environmental problems presented in this pamphlet will probably be in focus also in the years to come.
Steen Gade
Director-General
Danish Environmental Protection Agency