Feature

In 2021, the Air Quality News team was thrilled to return to the conference world, where we successfully hosted two sell-out conferences.

Both conferences brought together local authorities, academics, policy makers and green sector leaders who all came together to hear presentations from our excellent line-up of speakers and to engage with our wide-range of air quality exhibitors.

The first Northern Air Quality Conference was held in September at the iconic Midland Hotel, Manchester. Chaired by Stephen Cirell, the host of the Environment Journal Podcast and advisory energy consultant, the day included presentations on the history of air pollution, the economic benefits of Clean Air Zones and the significant problem of indoor air pollution.

Highlights of the day included a presentation from Dr Gary Fuller, who looked back on the ‘Great Smog’ of the 1950s and asked the complicated question, has air pollution ever been this bad?

Despite the lack of any monitoring data making this question difficult to answer, Gary concluded that although air pollution may not be as bad, the total burden on humanity is much worse – with 40% of humanity currently living in continents where air pollution is the worst on the planet.

Next up to present was Joe Swift, senior advisor in the Public Health and Air Quality Team and Julian Watkins, a social scientist at the Environment Agency. Joe and Julian told the audience about their ongoing Air Quality Inequalities Project.

The project is a collaborative effort and aims to bring together the voices and lived experiences of over 200 individuals and 80 groups who have expertise in air quality and health inequalities. Their aim is to answer difficult questions such as ‘Can the job you do affect your exposure to air quality?’ or ‘Does where you live affect your health?’

We also heard from Cllr Sarah Warren, Deputy Council Leader and Cabinet Member for Climate and Sustainable Travel at Bath and North

team was thrilled to return to the conference world, where we successfully hosted two sell-out conferences.

East Somerset Council.

Earlier this year, Bath became the first local authority outside of London to introduce a charging Clean Air Zone (CAZ). In her presentation, Sarah told the audience how Bath reached this milestone and explained the challenges and obstacles that the council had to overcome to reach where they are today.

Just two months later on November 11th, we regrouped with a new excellent line-up of speakers and a different group of delegates for the National Air Quality Conference at Lords Cricket Ground, London.

This conference began with a presentation from Baroness Finlay, who we have also interviewed on page 26 of this magazine. In her presentation, titled ‘The Housing Trilemma,’ Finlay focused on the importance of clean indoor air and looked at why Covid-19 should bring health and air quality back into focus for housing policymakers.

In the keynote presentation of the day, Sir Stephen Holgate joined the stage with a round of applause from the audience.

Sir Holgate is a Professor of Immunopharmacology and a respiratory physician at the University of Southampton. He is the founder of the DH Committee on the Medical

Effects of Air Pollutants, Chair of the Hazardous Substances Advisory Committee, President of the British Society of Allergy and is also a Special Advisor to the RCP on Air Quality.

In a very moving and powerful presentation, Stephen told the emotional story of how he helped Rosamund Kissi-Debrah, who was also sitting in the audience, prove that air pollution was responsible for her daughter’s death.

He presented graphic evidence on how Ella’s hospital episodes related to local pollution episodes near her home in London.

‘Ella’s bronchiolar tubes were damaged chemically by the air she was breathing. She was drowning, she was a canary in a coal mine.’

After lunch, Felicity Aston, MBE joined the audience live from her home in Iceland. Felicity is a polar scientist, author, arctic explorer and public speaker.

Felicity is also leading the BIG North Pole expedition, where an all-female team will be skiing to the North Pole to collect data on black carbon and microplastic pollution.

Spacehouse, the publishers of Air Quality News and Environment Journal are proud to be sponsoring this expedition. Follow the teams’ adventures and read all about their

Panel members included Elliot Treharne, Head of Air Quality at the Greater London Authority, Katie Nield, Clean Air Lawyer at ClientEarth, John Vinson, Commercial Director at VortexIOT and Campaigner and Clean Air Advocate Rosamund Kissi-Debrah.