In the sixth edition of the #Biodirectos cycle “Clean air: for a healthy environment for all”, inaugurated by the Vice-President and Minister for the Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge

The Ministry for the Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge (MITECO) today presented the Air Quality Index, an interactive map that allows you to consult, in real time, the air quality marked by the 506 measuring stations of the National Surveillance Network.

The conference “Clean air: for a healthy environment for all”, inaugurated by the Vice-President and Minister for the Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge. Teresa Ribera, addressed the importance of working on air quality in cities to generate healthy environments for citizens, promoting sustainable mobility, betting on clean technologies, collective transport and means of active mobility (walking or cycling).

The conference, the sixth edition of the #Biodirectos cycle, was also attended by the Director General of Quality and Environmental Assessment, Ismael Aznar, who presented and detailed the operation of the new air quality measurement tool.

The subsequent round table, moderated by the doctor of pharmacy, nutritionist and health communicator Marián García (Boticaria García), was attended by the director of the Department of Public Health and Environment of the World Health Organization, María Neira, the head of the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics of the National School of Health of the Carlos III Health Institute, Julio Díaz Jiménez, and the researcher at the Institute of Environmental Diagnosis and Water Studies (IDAEA) of the Spanish National Research Council, Xavier Querol.

Coinciding with the celebration of the European Mobility Week 2020, Vice-President Ribera pointed out how the health crisis has made the link between biodiversity, health and air quality more evident than ever. “Without a healthy environment, there is no health, and without health, our entire models of development and well-being go bankrupt.”

For this reason, Ribera assured that the Government is committed to ensuring that people can breathe clean air and “we want to do so by designing policies and interventions that address both air quality and measures to mitigate climate change and its impacts on health”. In this sense, the vice-president explained that it is necessary to transform our production system, promoting sustainability and environmental protection. A transformation that “constitutes an opportunity for growth, employment and innovation”.

During his speech, Ribera regretted that air pollution is linked to many premature deaths a year around the world, 25,000 of them in Spain alone. “It is necessary to act urgently to promote and increase ambition,” he said. For this reason, Spain, in line with the European Green Deal, supports the European Commission’s proposal to review air quality standards to make them more ambitious and in line with the recommendations of the World Health Organization (WHO).

To meet these recommendations and the demands of citizens, who demand to live in healthier and more habitable spaces, to breathe clean air, to live with less noise and to be protagonists of urban spaces, it is essential to move towards sustainable mobility models and to have transparent and accessible information.