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| Traffic is a major source of inner city pollution. Photo: Depositphotos.com |
The Dutch state has been given two weeks to come up with a
plan to drastically improve air quality in the Netherlands by judges in The
Hague.
In addition, ministers must publish a list of all the places in the
Netherlands where pollution limits are being broken or may be broken in the
future, the court said.
The court was responding to a fast-track case brought
by environmental organisation Milieudefensie which claims tens of thousands of
people die prematurely in the Netherlands every year because of air pollution.
Although the government does have a plan to reduce air pollution, it is still
too vague and short on concrete measures, the court said. In addition, the plan
will not lead to change immediately and the deadline for meeting official
pollution limits has already been moved several times,’ the court said in its
ruling.
Milieudefensie spokeswoman Anne Knol said the ruling is a
‘breakthrough’ for healthy air. ‘Air pollution in the Netherlands really needs
to be tackled so that fewer people are made ill or die from the consequences.
It is also good news for the million lung patients in the Netherlands.’
Amsterdam, Rotterdam and The Hague are all in the top 12 of most polluted
European cities and last year air quality deteriorated further, the
organisation claims.
Similar cases have also been brought before the courts in
Germany and Britain. In the Netherlands in 2015, a citizens initiative known as
Urgenda won its case to force the government to take more steps to reduce
greenhouse gases.
Junior economic affairs minister Sharon Dijksma said in a
reaction that the government will do more to tackle air pollution. ‘Clean air
is crucial,’ she told news agency ANP. ‘That is why we are going to speed up
our approach and make our plans more concrete, together with the regions where
there are problems.’
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