Pollution: an impact of 100 billion euros – Le Figaro

This is Le Parisien that reveals the figures Wednesday: according to a Senate report, pollution would cost each year to 100 billion euros to France, health expenditure, absenteeism in businesses or declining crop yields, as assessed by a commission of inquiry of the Senate.

Air pollution “is not a sanitary aberration, it is an economic aberration” says this commission Inquiry, chaired by Jean-François Husson (LR) and whose rapporteur is Leila Aichi (Ecologist), in its report “Air Pollution: the cost of inaction” to be released Wednesday. It represents “a major cost,” once considered health spending to support the pathologies caused by pollution (fine particles, nitrogen oxides, etc.), the impact of work absenteeism on productivity businesses, lower crop yields, loss of biodiversity or maintenance of degraded buildings.

In detail, total health costs of air pollution would be understood “between 68 and 97 billion euros “annually holds the report (data of” Clean Air for Europe “of the European Commission), while the non-health cost is estimated at him € 4.3 billion. Alone, indoor air pollution is a cost of € 19 billion per year.

The impact on the French health system is estimated him “a minima” to 3 billion euros, the report that includes expenditures to treat asthma due to pollution, certain cancers, or the costs of hospitalizations . But the overall cost “is widely underestimated,” Leila told AFP Aïchi for whom France “is late” and “lack of research on this issue.” The health effects of certain pollutants and are poorly known, particularly + + cocktail effect of the presence of several pollutants. “The air is generally less polluted” but “pollution has changed in nature”, less localized in industrial and more diffuse sites via public transport, heating, agriculture and indoor air, “says the report .

And the commission lists 61 measures calling for “a real ecological taxation” and “supplement existing standards” poorly defined or not covering the whole range of known pollutants. In transportation, it advocates including progressive alignment to 2020 taxation of gasoline and diesel, and the introduction of a tax on nitrogen emissions of fine particles and nitrogen oxide. The report also wants support to accelerate clean transportation (hybrid and electric vehicles, rail freight, rolling of the aircraft).

In agriculture, the Commission recommends to specifically study the causes of mortality among farmers due to certain types of cancer and to better control the dispersion of pollutants.


ALSO READ:
“An app to get information on the hourly pollution
” pollution map in Paris “Amazing constraints for transport companies”