A European perspective on hazardous air pollutants

Air pollution is considered to be a major threat to human health. Protection of human health from adverse effects of air pollutants and elimination or reduction of exposure to hazardous air pollutants was therefore the major consideration of the World Health Organization to establish the Air Quality Guidelines for Europe. The 2nd edition of the WHO guidelines has recently been published. In establishing pollutant levels below which exposure does not constitute a significant public health risk, the guidelines provide information for regulatory authorities on a national or international level to set standards or limit values for air pollutants. The guidelines also form a basis for the development of risk management or risk abatement strategies. During the recent revision of the WHO Air Quality Guidelines for Europe, DG Environment of the European Commission developed a Framework Directive on Air Quality (96/62/EC) and a number of Daughter Directives dealing with individual pollutants. It was agreed that the European Commission should use the WHO Air Quality Guidelines as starting point for deriving limit values for a number of major air pollutants in the European Union. This paper describes the revision of the WHO guidelines and addresses the differences between guidelines and legally binding standards as for instance the limit values established by the EU.