Abstract
The science on the effects of global climate change and air pollution on morbidity and mortality is clear and debate now centres around the scale and precise contributions of particular pollutants. Sufficient data existed in recent decades to support the adoption of precautionary public health policies relating to fossil fuels including shale exploration. Yet air quality and related public health impacts linked to ethical and environmental justice elements are often marginalized or missing in planning and associated decision making. Industry and government policies and practices, laws and planning regulations lagged well behind the science in the United Kingdom. This paper explores the reasons for this and what shaped some of those policies. Why did shale gas policies in England fail to fully address public health priorities and neglect ethical and environmental justice concerns. To answer this question, an interdisciplinary analysis is needed informed by a theoretical framework of how air pollution and climate change are largely discounted in the complex realpolitik of policy and regulation for shale gas development in England. Sources, including official government, regulatory and planning documents, as well as industry and scientific publications are examined and benchmarked against the science and ethical and environmental justice criteria. Further, our typology illustrates how the process works drawing on an analysis of official policy documents and statements on planning and regulatory oversight of shale exploration in England, and material from industry and their consultants relating to proposed shale oil and gas development. Currently the oil, gas and chemical industries in England continue to dominate and influence energy and feedstock-related policy making to the detriment of ethical and environmental justice decision making with significant consequences for public health.
Highlights
The WHO Europe in 2013 used an expert scientific group to review European policies on air pollution from a health perspective [1]
The review concluded that a considerable amount of new scientific information on the adverse effects on health of particulate matter, ozone and nitrogen dioxide, observed at levels commonly present in Europe, reinforced the scientific conclusions of the WHO air quality guidelines, updated in 2005, indicating that adverse effects could occur from air pollution concentrations lower than those in guidelines published at the time
This paper uses empirical and theoretical approaches to environmental justice and ethics adopted or advocated by researchers and professional bodies relevant to shale exploration air pollution issues [2,3,40,41,42,43,44]. It deliberately does not provide a literature review of shale oil and gas air pollution studies but rather draws on air pollution studies that help to inform an understanding of how environmental justice and ethical issues have been addressed by government, industry and professional bodies
Summary
The WHO Europe in 2013 used an expert scientific group to review European policies on air pollution from a health perspective [1]. The review concluded that a considerable amount of new scientific information on the adverse effects on health of particulate matter, ozone and nitrogen dioxide, observed at levels commonly present in Europe, reinforced the scientific conclusions of the WHO air quality guidelines, updated in 2005, indicating that adverse effects could occur from air pollution concentrations lower than those in guidelines published at the time. It provided scientific arguments for taking decisive actions to improve air quality and reduce the burden of disease associated with air pollution in Europe. Public Health 2020, 17, 4320; doi:10.3390/ijerph17124320 www.mdpi.com/journal/ijerph
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