Response to interpellation 2022/23:212 on the environmental goal of clean air

Statsrådet Romina Pourmokhtari (L)

Mr. Speaker! Joakim Järrebring has asked me if I will work to ensure that the government tightens the environmental goal regarding fresh air.

The environmental quality objective Fresh Air means that the air shall be so clean that people's health as well as animals, plants and cultural values are not harmed. The Government does not intend to tighten that objective.

According to the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency's latest assessment, we are close to reaching the goal. At the same time, the levels for some of the pollutants are still above the target level. To address this, we need to implement measures both outside Sweden so that the transboundary transport of air pollutants decreases, and within the country, primarily to reduce emissions from traffic. Sweden is therefore actively working in the UN Convention on Long-range Transboundary Air Pollution and other international forums such as Helcom and IMO to reduce the transboundary transport of soot and nitrogen oxides in various ways.

As chair of the EU, Sweden is leading the negotiations on a new air quality directive and the Euro 7 regulation, both of which aim to reduce air pollution and thereby improve citizens' health and the environment. The Government will also report an updated air care program to the EU Commission during 2023. We also see that the EU's and the Government's upcoming measures regarding the climate transition work and, above all, the electrification will result in benefits in the work with the environmental goal Fresh Air.

I will therefore work to ensure that the government continues on its current path.

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Joakim Järrebring (S)

Mr. Speaker! Thank you, Minister, for the answer! As appears from the Minister's answer, it is judged for the first time that the possibilities exist for Sweden to reach the environmental quality goal of fresh air. That is good.

But my previous written question and this interpellation are based on the fact that the World Health Organization, WHO, has presented new guidelines. Most recently, in the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency's report on fresh air and the in-depth evaluation of Sweden's environmental goals, the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency has conveyed the need for the goal to be tightened and specified. It is clear that the ambition levels in today's environmental goals for fresh air have been too low in light of recent years' research on air pollution. According to the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency, it is a matter of a halving of levels for several important pollutants compared to the goals currently in force.

The importance of fresh air should not be underestimated. Research has already previously shown that children exposed to high levels of air pollutants from traffic and other emission sources during their first years of life run a higher risk of suffering from asthma and impaired lung function. Swedish research has shown a direct impact on the heart and blood vessels when people are exposed to diesel exhaust. A connection has also been demonstrated between exposure to air pollutants and cardiovascular diseases, respiratory problems and dementia, as well as allergies in children.

Despite Sweden having some of Europe's lowest levels of air pollution, it is estimated that somewhere between 6,000 and 7,000 people die prematurely in Sweden every year. Taken together, I believe this should result in a tightening of a number of the environmental goals' specifications. My question is: What makes the Minister draw other conclusions?

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Statsrådet Romina Pourmokhtari (L)

Mr. Speaker! Member Järrebring asked whether we intend to sharpen the goals for the work with fresh air. To that question, I answer that we are working very clearly to reach that goal, as well as that we are actually on our way to reaching the goal and that we therefore choose to focus on continuing on the path already taken and continuing to work to succeed in reaching the goal.

So, there is nothing wrong with the ambition level of the goal; that is not where we see the problem lies in the work we perform. On the contrary, the ambition level of the goal is very high. We are on the right track, even if we have not yet reached the goal. It should therefore be quite obvious that we should continue to work to reach this ambitious goal, which we have not yet reached but which we are well on our way to reaching, and carry out the measures required for us to succeed in reaching the goal and enable the fulfillment of the goal. That is where the government believes the focus should lie now. The government does not believe that we should change the goal, because that does not bring us any closer to what we are to achieve.

We see a positive trend. The Swedish Environmental Protection Agency's assessment is that we are close to reaching the goal, and we are working hard on the remaining path. I think these are positive news. On the other hand, one could say that there is other things to take into account in the long-term perspective, including that which Member Järrebring himself raised regarding WHO's updated guidelines.

Last autumn, WHO updated and tightened its guidelines for air quality. The update before that was made in 2005. Quite a lot has happened since then, including in the form of added scientific evidence which shows that the negative health effects are both stronger and seen at lower levels than had been previously calculated.

It was expected that stricter guidelines from WHO would be proposed from the outside. The consequences of such a decision and of the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency suggesting in its evaluation that we review this simply mean that we review this and handle the issue within the Government Offices. We will, of course, look at all the proposals that appear in the report.

Work is also being carried out within the EU, which the government leads as chair. The Commission's proposal for a revised air quality directive has, of course, incorporated WHO's guidelines, but it has not been chosen to change the content based on this. It is of course the case that in the assessment one makes, updated guidelines from, for example, WHO are taken into account, but the Commission conducts a thorough impact assessment and arrives at a proposal where the norms are significantly tightened and where one works according to this to achieve a greatly improved public health. There are also great benefits there in relation to the cost.

I think it is very important that we take positive health effects into account to a large extent, but we must also do it in a sensible way. Just in this case, Mr. Speaker, the government does not consider it to be the level of ambition that is the problem, but rather that we must carry out the measures required to reach the high goals that already exist.

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Joakim Järrebring (S)

Mr. Speaker! I do not want us to land in any kind of semantic discussion in this debate. The Minister pointed out that there is knowledge. The Minister also knows that there are expectations from the agency Naturvårdsverket that this goal should be specified in order to reach the level of ambition that was intended from the beginning, i.e., to achieve fresh air.

We note that the goals have not been sufficiently ambitious and that the adverse effects exist at much lower levels for a number of these particles. If one wants to reach the previously set ambition level, it is well reasonable to sharpen the specifications in the goal so that we reach the ambition level for fresh air that was set from the beginning.

I tried to interpret what the minister said in his recent post. Is it just a semantic difference between sharpening the goal and meeting the increased requirements for specifications in the goal that the government is against or is satisfied with? The target level is now far too low in relation to the ambition for fresh air.

I do not know if my own motion became much clearer, but the Minister might be able to help me and try to answer whether there is a will within the government to actually specify the target levels to achieve truly fresh air, so that we can deal with the 6,000-7,000 people who die prematurely completely unnecessarily.

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Statsrådet Romina Pourmokhtari (L)

Mr. Speaker! I understand Member Järreborg's confusion regarding what it is that actually applies here.

Let me be very clear. We have an environmental quality objective regarding fresh air, which means that the air should be so clean that people's health, animals, plants, and cultural values are not harmed. That is the goal. It is a goal that has been set, and it is a goal that has parameters that we are now working towards.

Naturvårdsverket makes the assessment that we are on a good path to reach this goal, but we have not yet reached it. To then place the emphasis on that we are now to raise the level of ambition and rework the content that exists in the policy we conduct to reach the goal of clean air is not our intention at this time. Right now, we are instead focusing on implementing the measures that take us to the goal of clean air as it stands now, because we still have not reached it. It is, however, one of the goals that we are close to reaching, and we need further measures to reach this goal.

There is very much that can be done. It would have been exciting to, in addition to the semantic question, talk about how we structure the work.

Member Järrebring and I agree that air quality is a major problem even in Sweden, Mr. Speaker. Almost 7,000 people die annually from poor air quality; this is a figure that I believe many would be surprised by. There is important work to be done here.

Regarding WHO's sharpened guidelines and the increased ambition, it was expected that such a proposal would come. The Swedish Environmental Protection Agency has now, in an in-depth report, proposed that the specifications should be reviewed within the government. This proposal is being prepared, in accordance with the entire report, within the Government Offices.

Parallel to that, we are currently working specifically to reach the goal for clean air that has been set, as it is designed. There is very much to address there, Mr. Speaker. There is very much that we will need to do to reach the goal even as it is written right now. This is an important task which is influenced, among other things, by the transboundary transport, which I mentioned earlier. There we can truly see great advantages when it comes to the air pollutants that exist in Sweden but which come from other countries.

I hope that during the chairmanship we will be able to achieve successes that contribute to better air quality in Sweden as well. In addition to what I mentioned earlier, it is primarily diesel, studded tires, and wood that cause the major problems we have with air quality in Sweden today. That is where we need to tackle the problem.

That is why electrification becomes an important part of improving our air quality, especially in densely populated and heavily trafficked areas. We are very exposed to air pollution from other countries, and there has long been a tradition - both in previous governments and in this government - of driving air issues in all international forums because the world shares the air, Mr. Speaker.

There is, therefore, much to do in this area. One can, of course, take into account WHO's strict guidelines, but it is not exactly the question of ambition level that we consider to be the important thing here. Right now, the government is focusing on how we can in different ways counteract poor air quality in Sweden.

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Joakim Järrebring (S)

Mr. Speaker! I do not know if I understood better because I heard it once more or if the Minister was clearer, but now I understood, in any case. That is good.

The starting point for my interpellation was that the level of ambition is set too low. The level of ambition must be measured in some way, and the measurement is carried out based on the levels. Previously, the assessment was made, based on the scientific evidence available, that certain levels were sufficiently low, and thereby a measurement value was set: This is how we follow up on whether we have achieved clean air or not.

Now we note that the limits are too high. It then becomes a bit strange if one refers to the ambition level that has been set, and which we now know is set too low, and says that it is the one we shall continue to try to reach. In that case, we do not reach the real ambition level: to avoid people dying prematurely due to poor air quality.

I will return to my question – I suppose I must phrase it in a somewhat different way – whether the Minister can consider changing the position on this issue and review which tightenings actually need to occur regarding the limits for important pollutants compared to our current targets, so that we can actually reach the level of ambition that we have agreed upon previously regarding fresh air.

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Statsrådet Romina Pourmokhtari (L)

Mr. Speaker! Thank you, Member Järrebring, for an important discussion on an issue that affects very many to a greater extent than one might perhaps be aware of. It is very important that we work to achieve healthier air in our country and to achieve completely healthy air in our country. We also have an environmental quality objective for healthy air that Sweden and the government are working towards. The Swedish Environmental Protection Agency makes it clear that we are well on our way to reaching this goal. We are working on the right track and will hopefully soon reach the goal we have.

Simultaneously, Mr. Speaker, work is being carried out at the EU level where we are working with air quality directives and with regulations of our transport that will contribute to air quality throughout Europe in many different ways. That is where we are now focusing our efforts, while we in the Government Offices, of course, look at all the wise reports that the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency so profitably provides us with.

The interpellations debate was hereby concluded.

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