UK Parliament Call for Evidence on Air Pollution

Overview

Time Period: 23/02/2026 – 03/03/2026

Key Themes: air pollution

Context

Tackling air pollution is the subject of a new inquiry by MPs on the Environmental Audit Committee, launched January 2026.

Evidence Gap

• Causes and sources of air pollution in England
• The adequacy of capture and analysis of air pollution data in England
• Current barriers and challenges to achieving national air quality targets
• Comparisons of the UK with international air quality regulations
• Air quality policy interaction with climate change mitigation, nature recovery and land use planning

Objectives

The work aimed to synthesise evidence for the parliamentary inquiry based on research conducted by the atmospheric chemistry group in ICAS (Institute for Climate and Atmospheric Science). Specifically to address the following:

1. The impacts air pollution has on health across different communities in England, and on the environment, such as through reduced crops, acid rain or biodiversity loss.
2. Whether Government’s current air quality targets are adequate to protect health and the environment, and how these compare with standards by other bodies, such as the World Health Organisation.
3. Whether local authorities in England have the resources they need to monitor air quality and enforce existing rules.

Our Approach

CEU researcher Sally Wilson met with the research group, led by Professor Steve Arnold, to act as a consultant on their submission of written evidence (3000 words), advising them on structure, scope, content, audience and motivations, and to ensure the evidence adhered to guidelines and submission requirements.

Contributions from all the research group members were invaluable and the report features the latest science published by the group, as well some important outcomes of new work on UK woodlands which is yet to be published.

Key Findings

Air pollution in the UK comes from a mixture of different sources, including vehicle emissions from the transport sector, domestic activities, industrial sources, agriculture, and natural sources. Contributors are likely to change over time as climate change affects the atmosphere, land surface and natural emission sources. Climate-driven sources such as wildfires are likely to increase in the future.

The current network for air pollution monitoring in the UK does not fully represent population exposure across all UK regions. The network struggles to accurately monitor spatial gradients in air pollution across some areas of the UK, due to insufficient density of monitoring stations.

Changes in atmospheric circulation patterns and precipitation under climate change may enhance accumulation of pollution in the atmosphere. Warmer, drier conditions can lead to accelerated atmospheric formation of pollutants such as ground-level ozone, enhanced wildfire activity, and changes in interactions between the atmosphere and land surface. These effects mean that climate change may partly counteract efforts to improve air quality through reductions in human-made emissions of air pollutants, making meeting air quality targets more challenging. This emphasises the need for coordinated efforts to reduce human-made emissions of climate-warming agents and harmful air pollutants, to further reduce barriers to achieving air pollution targets in future.

New woodlands are a part of proposed pathways to achieving net-zero greenhouse gas emissions in the UK. The group's recent work has demonstrated that a substantial increase in woodland area delivered under afforestation efforts, doesn’t necessarily lead to big increases in biogenic volatile compounds (BVOCs) from trees, which influence the formation of key air pollutants in the UK, such as ozone and particulate matter. By avoiding exclusive planting of the very highest emitters, we can ensure that new woodlands deliver benefits for climate and nature, whilst minimising any impacts on air quality.

A current deficiency in fire-risk forecasting tools is an urgent challenge for fire management and public health and security across Europe (including the UK).

Impact

The work has been submitted to be used in the Parliament inquiry report on Air Pollution in England.

This will influence decision-making on air pollution monitoring and targets in England in the future via recommendations to the Government made via the select committee.

Further Information

Related publications:

Burton, C., et al., (2025), Environmental Research Letters , https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/adb764.

Carnell, E.; et al., (2025), UK gridded population at 1 km resolution for 2021 based on Census 2021/2022 and Land Cover Map 2021. NERC EDS Environmental Information Data Centre. https://doi.org/10.5285/7beefde9-c520-4ddf-897a-0167e8918595

Dirmeyer, P. A., et al., (2021), AGU Advances, https://doi.org/10.1029/2020AV000283

Graham, A. M., et al., (2020), Environ. Res. Lett., https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ab8496.

Mooney, H., et al., (2025), Biogeosciences, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-22-5309-2025.

Seo J, et al., (2025), Environ. Res. Lett. , DOI: 10.1088/1748-9326/ada2b2.

Shiroshita, A., et al., (2026), Environmental Advances, https://doi.org/10.1016/J.ENVADV.2025.100681.

Silver B., et al., (2025), Environ Int., doi: 10.1016/j.envint.2025.109318.

van Donkelaar, A., et al. (2021), Environmental Science & Technology, https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.est.1c05309

World Population Prospects (2024). United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division (2024). Available at https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.POP.TOTL.

 

Contact information

Steve Arnold ([email protected])