Addressing the unjust burden of air pollution with Enact Equality

Organised by Enact Equality, the event in Parliament shone a light on the disproportionate environmental impacts faced by marginalised communities. Speakers and guests were invited to discuss the necessary policy changes to build a fairer and more sustainable future.

Air pollution: an issue of social and racial injustice

Air pollution is the single greatest environmental threat to human health in the UK. It contributes to up to 43,000 deaths annually.

While we’re all affected by poor air quality, the health effects are not experienced equally. Air pollution disproportionately prevents certain groups of people from living happy and healthy lives.

The UK’s Black and Asian populations are disproportionately affected by air pollution in two ways:

• Racially minoritised people are often disproportionately exposed to air pollution, especially in urban areas. This is particularly the case for Black people, as recently demonstrated by the Institute for Fiscal Studies.
• Black and Asian people are often more affected by air pollution and have an elevated risk of experiencing adverse health effects. This is due to the wider health effects of systemic racism, which increase the risk of developing a long-term health condition or exacerbating an existing condition (like asthma).

As Bell Ribeiro-Addy MP set out at the event, air pollution is “an injustice we need to address most urgently”.

Policymakers need to involve racially minoritised people in solutions

The people who are most disproportionately affected by air pollution rarely have their voices heard by policymakers. Policy solutions will only be genuinely equitable and effective if they are developed with communities that have the most at stake.

When involving people in policymaking, it is vital that their time and expertise is compensated. This is something Enact Equality have done to inform policy development for their campaign. As L’myah Sherae, Founder and CEO of Enact Equality, said: “We pay participants for taking part in our focus groups as we feel it is important for individuals to be compensated for their labour – especially those who have historically been marginalised”.

We all have a right to breathe clean air, which must be enshrined in law

Clean air is a fundamental building block of health, but this is not recognised in law. At Impact on Urban Health, we believe that everyone in the UK has the right to breathe safe, clean air, no matter who they are or where they live.

At the event Rosamund Kissi-Debrah made this case clearly, telling an audience of over 200 people: “It is your right to breathe clean air”.

We need the Government to put our right to clean air into UK law, ensuring everyone has access to this basic human right. The Government could do this by introducing Ella’s Law, which would create a human right to breathe clean air and set up a commission to oversee Government actions and progress.