ClientEarth, the legal activists campaigning for environmental protection, have sent a final warning to the UK Government and Environment secretary Liz Truss, to take action on air pollution within ten days or face action in the High Court.
ClientEarth, in an article released on their website, stated that 40,000 people die in the UK due to air pollution every year. They say that UK policies mean they cannot foresee levels of air pollution reaching a legal standard until 2025.
ClientEarth CEO James Thornton, said: "Despite an order from the UK's highest court, despite tens of thousands of premature deaths in this country every year and despite clear evidence to show that air pollution has a terrible effect on the health of vulnerable groups like children, the government has consistently ducked its responsibility to ensure our right to clean air. We have had to issue this legal warning to the government because of its failure to produce a plan that would bring air pollution down as soon as possible."
The deadline of ten days is the time in which ClientEarth require a satisfactory reply from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) regarding their policies and what they suggest to do otherwise. The activist group won a case in April 2015, at the Supreme Court, where the Government were ordered to introduce policies to tackle air pollution.
