Large reductions predicted for exposure to NO2 in London

4 December 2013

Research performed by Aether on behalf of the GLA has found that the number of Londoners estimated to live in areas exceeding the EU legal annual limit value for NO2 (40ug/m3) has more than halved since 2008.

As shown in the figure below, in 2008, the figure stood at around 3.6 million, but by 2012 this had been reduced to 1.7 million, equivalent to about 20% of the population of London. This is thanks in part to tighter low emission zone standards, retiring the oldest and most polluting taxis, and cleaning up the bus fleet.

By 2016 this figure is expected to reduce further to around 1 million people, and by 2020 to be approximately 300,000 people, most of whom live in central London. The Mayor has thus proposed a central London Ultra Low Emission Zone from 2020 to address the remaining areas of high pollution.

These figures are based on the London Atmospheric Emissions Inventory, with residential population data based on the 2011 census and population projections.

See all news


Testimonial

Don't just take our word for it...

“ Aether's approach to couple innovative visualisation with high expertise manpower delivered valuable insights for our inventory work. ”

Umweltbundesamt (Germany)

“ Chris was excellent to work with and always very pro active in making suggestions, taking work forward and applying his considerable technical knowledge in effective ways. ”

Robert Vaughan, Defra Air Quality Team

“ We have worked with Aether since 2019 to baseline, and subsequently update, our council and borough greenhouse gas inventories. It is a pleasure working with Aether’s professional, responsive, collaborative and helpful team. ”

Merton Council

“ A heartfelt thank you to all the Aether team for this very comprehensive review – this is certainly turning out to be one of the most beneficial capacity building projects I have ever been involved in. ”

Saviour Vassallo, Senior Environment Protection Officer, Malta Resources Authority

“ Both the face-to-face training and the online version have been of high quality, with dynamic methods and a practical orientation that have allowed students to reach a solid knowledge base. The products have been delivered within the stipulated deadlines with an excellent quality and the team has always shown willingness to make adjustments according to the requirements of CONAF. We are very satisfied with the work. ”

Javier Cano Martín, Professional Unit for Climate Change and Environmental Services, CONAF (National Forestry Corporation), Chile

“ Professional team and very collaborative communication. Effective result in terms of suggestions for improvement in the quality of the inventory and proposals on how to streamline specific topics. ”

Italian Institute for Environmental Protection and Research

Contact us

Get in touch

Call us on +44 1865 259 200, complete the short form below, or go to the Contact page

Aether would like to keep in touch with you via email with news and updates. Please be assured that we'll treat your information with the utmost care and will not share it with other companies for marketing purposes. See our privacy policy.

Newsletter