Introduction
Globally, clean air is a critical resource for the general public health while a clean environment is one of the essential elements required for the establishment of sustainable societies. Human beings breathe the air around them and thus air pollution or any pollution manifested in any other form to the environment directly affects their overall health and wellbeing. This has the implication that public authorities at international, national and local levels have the responsibility of protecting the quality of the air through development of regulations that regulate the use of products and materials that have the potential of causing air pollution. The 1952 severe London smog that caused an estimated 4, 000 deaths led to the enactment of the pioneer modern comprehensive clean air legislation in the world (Clancy, Goodman, Sinclair and Dockery 2002, p. 1210). More deaths have been reported ever since with air pollution menace now having posed a serious threat to the health of human beings. The high concentration of pollutants in the atmosphere consequently increases the risks to human health. Ireland government introduced a ban on smoky coal with the aim of reducing emissions and ultimately delivering a clean environment and better public health. Despite the success of the initiatives, there are challenges that exist and which must be continuously addressed by collective team efforts to sustain and enhance the quality of the air in Ireland. This paper examines the reasons why banning smoky coal burns is a priority area for Ireland, evaluation of the factors that contributed to the issue, explore policies, strategies and approaches that are aimed at addressing the smoke problem in Ireland. It also seeks to examine their implementation effectiveness, evaluation of the factors that contribute to ineffective implementation of the policies and make recommendations to overcome those challenges.
Risk Factors for Ireland
The Smoky Coal Ban as a Priority Area in Ireland
The Ireland government recognizes the fact the climate change is its responsibility since it has a direct effect on the health of Ireland citizens. The smoky coal poses high risks to the health of Ireland residents. This has been evidenced by an estimated 2, 000 lives that are lost annually due to the smoky coal that causes air pollution and its associated diseases such as lung cancer. On the other hand, the benefits of total smoky coal ban have been noted in cities such as Dublin where it has been implemented such as significant reduction in mortalities from smoky coal burning effects, and respiratory problems reported and treated. Also, banning smoky coal burn in the country helps in reducing the production of coal ash that is a huge source of arsenic as well as other health-damaging metals to which the residents of Ireland may be exposed. Exposure to such metals eventually leads to increased health risks and increases the probability of deaths or poor health. Ongoing exposure of Ireland citizens to nasty pollutants from smoky coal burns leads to more respiratory diseases and is likely to affect all citizens irrespective of their age and income. More health complications arising from the climatic changes cost the Irish economy huge financial resources in treating when they have occurred implying that they hardly press the resources of Ireland that it allocates to the health sector. These factors have therefore made the government prioritize eradication of the smoky bans so as to create a better and healthy Ireland for its citizens.
Regulations and Strategies in Enforcing Smoky Coal Ban
The influence of climate-unfriendly fuels such as peat and coal on the quality of air needs to be examined more carefully so that the government can create initiatives that reduce the country's reliance on pollution-intensive fuels. The government of Ireland primarily focuses on incentives to change the perspectives of its citizens in shifting from such risky fuels that have both air quality and climate benefits. As this happens, the government makes a balance between increased of use fuels that are wood-based as ones facilitating climate measure and other pollution-intensive fuels like coal. This is because wood-based fuels also have the possibility of increasing air pollutants emission when inappropriately prepared or when unseasoned for residential heating. Delivering cleaner air as a national goal set by the government of Ireland is aligned to government policies, strategies and aims. Such policies include the Building Regulations that are combined with Recast Energy Performance of Building Directive that sets out the road map to reducing carbon emissions as well as increasing energy efficiency in modern buildings. This makes it possible for the people in Ireland to improve carbons and energy efficiency by reducing solid fossil fuels use in recently constructed homes since they have high carbon content and are relatively inefficient in combustion as compared to oil, gas and renewable forms of energy. This strategy delivers substantial benefits to the air quality in Ireland.
Warmer Homes: Strategy for Affordable Energy in Ireland publication recognizes energy poverty as having a significant role in improving carbon and energy efficiency. This is because it helps families in Ireland to reduce their reliant on fuel that is solid in nature by funding social enterprises that upgrade the insulation of low-income households. Such a strategy aims at alleviating energy poverty in Ireland and it is expected that this will trickle down to high air quality, saving costs due to efficient fuel use and act as driver of Ireland’s government climate policy (O’Dwyer, 2011, p. 5).
The Smoky Coal Ban regulation was first introduced twenty years ago in Ireland when Smoky coal ban was first enacted and implemented in Dublin City. This regulation imposed a ban on marketing, distribution as well as the sale of smoky coal. These regulations were aimed at restricting smoky coal availability. The regulations effectively addressed the severed air pollution problems that had resulted from widespread use smoky coal thus causing significant higher winter mortality rates in Dublin. The higher levels of deaths due to black smoke emissions from smoky coal at the times were attributed to breaches of EU air quality guidelines and standards on air quality. The ban was efficient in reducing emissions as well as delivering significant reductions in excessive Dublin winter mortality (Goodman, Rich, Zeka, Clancy and Dockery, 2009, p. 210). It was also found out that such regulations were strictly complied with locals. Following its success in Dublin, these regulations were further implemented in other cities such as Cork City, Limerick City, Wexford Town, Arklow, Naas, Waterford City, Tralee and Ennis. Besides the national laws Ireland also uses international laws enacted by the UN in supporting its efforts for cleaner environment by banning smoky coal such as the Stockholm Convection on Persistent Organic Pollutants that aims at identifying, characterizing and addressing Persistent Organic Pollutants. People and industries that do not follow these regulations in restricted areas are fined on spot by the EAP officials so as to enforce compliance. In summary, the current regulations, strategies and policies in Ireland regarding the use of smoky coal involves the banning of coal sale including storing and distribution throughout Ireland, banning of bituminous coal burning in restricted areas, banning of burning bituminous coal that has less than 0.7% sulphur outside restricted areas, enforcement of the regulations, policies and strategies by Environment Protection Agency, all fuel suppliers need to possess tax clearance certificate as well as be registered with EPA’s Fuel Register.
Obstacles
The Air Pollution Act that regulate sales, distributing and use of smoky coal was primarily developed for Dublin and its success there did not necessarily translate to instance success in other cities. It worked well in larger cities but miserably failed in smaller towns and citizens. This is because residents of such town could easily migrate to areas where the ban was not strictly enforced and acquire the restricted fuel and later use them inside banned areas. It was also noted that access to fuels that were restricted and were pollutant intensive was typically facilitated by businesses with established premises outside ban area boundaries specifically in smaller towns and cities (Clancy, Goodman, Sinclair and Dockery, 2002, p 1211). These concerns thus started to raise questions as to whether the current ban on the regulations restricting the marketing, distribution and sales of the restricted fuel should be supplemented through regulation of use as well as their burning. It was also found out that enforcement issues were also a great hindrance to the overall effectiveness of the regulations and strategies that have been developed by the Government of Ireland. In most towns and neighborhoods, the local authorities lack resources to enforce the regulations and thus people continue to use smoky coal in restricted areas. This has greatly undermined the government regulations and strategies to reduce air pollution by reducing smoky coal use in residential areas for heating during winters.
Recommendations
This paper recommends that to ensure that the quality of air is improved by ensuring effective smoky coal ban; reviews need to be done regularly so as to ensure that designated ban area size is appropriate. The laws and strategies should be aligned to EPA National Air Quality and monitoring standards so as to ensure that Ireland achieves the appropriate cost-benefit ratio (Krupnick and Morgenstern, 2002, p. 240). The banning of burning smoky coal within the restricted areas needs to be considered and ban on smoky coal storage so as to give local authorities more power in banning the use of certain fuels that has the potential of leading to higher pollution risks. Fixed payment notices need to be taken to serve as the enforcement tool by local authorities to facilitate the enforcement procedures. More measures that increase regulations enforceability with fuel sales regard also needs be defined well to ensure that individual in restricted areas has no access to and use of smoky coal. The government needs to harmonize labeling requirements between fuel merchants and suppliers on the sulphur content of the fuels they sell so that customers are well informed of the fuel that they are buying and reselling (Hunt, 2011, p. 2). Also, the government needs to consider complimentary measures that improve air quality such as regulating appliances that utilize solid fuel including their allowed emissions. In particular, the government needs to consider the minimum performance requirements of combustion appliances. The government must also regularly inspect and maintain chimneys of heating appliances that utilize solid fuels in restricted areas.
Conclusion
With many air pollutants now, it's clear from the evidence that when human beings are exposed even below the mandatory standards, it causes adverse health effects. Therefore it's necessary that the government of Ireland, as well as international bodies, continue to take bold actions that will enhance the quality of air in Ireland so as to protect the environment and public health. Presently, regulations on the use of smoky coal in residential heating have been found to be effective. The regulations play an important to safeguard and improve the quality of air in Ireland. They have helped consolidate the Ireland brand and reputation as a green and clean place to visit and conduct business (Krupnick and Morgenstern, 2002, p. 247). The fostering of the green economy in developing sustainable development is now a tangible aim of Ireland government. It’s only now prudent to constantly review smoky coal ban legislation thus ensuring that such regulations are effective in providing effective protection against air pollution threats. This review should incorporate stakeholders so as to develop efficient regulations, policies, aims and strategies in reducing the impact of air pollution on the environment as well as public health that is likely to cause the country large sums of money in treating the citizens who end up suffering from the complications such as asthma from air pollution.
References
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Goodman, P.G., Rich, D.Q., Zeka, A., Clancy, L. and Dockery, D.W., 2009. Effect of air pollution controls on black smoke and sulfur dioxide concentrations across Ireland. Journal of the Air & Waste Management Association, 59(2), pp.207-213.
Krupnick, A., and Morgenstern, R., 2002. The future of benefit-cost analyses of the Clean Air Act. Annual review of public health, 23(1), pp.427-448.
O’Dwyer, M., 2011. Air Quality in Ireland 2010. Key Indicators of Ambient Air Quality. Environmental Protection Agency, Ireland.
Hunt, A., 2011. Policy interventions to address health impacts associated with air pollution, unsafe water supply and sanitation, and hazardous chemicals.
