APPG 2030 Ban

Fair Fuel APPG for UK Motorists and UK Hauliers August 2021 Page | 38 Years of Life Lost is defined as ‘The years or potential life lost owing to premature death and considers the age at which deaths occur giving greater weight to deaths at a younger age and lower weight to deaths at an older age.’ YLL therefore gives us a more nuanced approach versus relying on the number of premature deaths alone. In the EEA report (Their Table 9.1 pictured) they give us the YLL number for Europe as 800,000 years of life lost. That is a terrifying figure! But this number covers all of Europe - which is roughly 500 million people - and the EEA breaks this down to the number of Years of Life Lost per capita as 160 YLL/100,000. That means 100,000 people together lose 160 years of life. For each person this works out as 0.0016 years or a more understandable 0.584 days - if an average life expectancy is 80 years or 29,200 days. The EEA says that if the whole of Europe meets the EU proposed NOx limits of 40mg/m3 everywhere, we’d improve YLL by 205,000 across 500 million people or roughly - 3.5 hours. That is just 3.5hrs in a lifetime! Note that the EEA arrived at this time figure – specifically the estimate of a premature loss of life of between half-a-day and 3.5 hours per person. It is also the EEA that seeks to directly attribute this low loss of lifetime to NOx pollution. This significant widely reported mortality figure put down to poor air quality is now, broadly unquestioned, across the media. The emotive number is reached because of the use of that word ‘premature.’ To form policy based on such a febrile and clearly unproven estimate, with no real evidence of any deaths from NOx pollution, is both irresponsible and scientifically unfounded. Martin Hetzel, Medical Director of the Red Cross Hospital, Stuttgart – Germany said: “There is no such thing as a fine particulate disease of the lung or heart, and you don’t come across such a thing as nitrogen dioxide disease of lung or heart in hospital. They don’t exist. Fine particulate matter or NO2 hasn’t caused a single death. These are abstract mathematical models.” “It’s simply not plausible that such small concentrations of NO 2 and fine particulate matter would cause the harm and death that are being publicized at the moment.” The Kloster Grafshaft Hospital, a former Benedictine Monastery used for fresh air recuperation after WWII, specialises in respiratory care. For years Dieter Kohler, a former president of the Respiratory Society, was Medical Director there. He is also sceptical about the German Environmental Agency’s data. He said: The 40,000 deaths claim still goes unchecked, unchallenged and this headline is reeled out by much of the media that seem simply, to despise the motorist. Particularly the BBC and Sky! It will cost us trillions of Pounds in transport policy and legislation changes. Even if the air quality death estimates were valid, this would improve our life expectancy by only a trivial amount of time.