Auckland Council's Environment and Sustainability champion Wayne Walker says while steps are being taken to reduce air pollution in the city, change isn’t happening fast enough.
A report currently being debated by the Council claims more than 700 people die each year due to pollution and the city’s air quality has often failed to meet environmental standards.
Mr Walker told Firstline people are dying earlier in Auckland because of the high levels of air pollution - especially in winter, when use of home heating including woodfires increases, and during summer periods of high transport use.
Although the city is surrounded by water and blustery harbours, Mr Walker says the air “doesn’t always move away, often it simply moves around”.
Cloudy days are the worst for air pollution, he says, with heavy cloud cover often creating “this inversion layer so the smog gets trapped”.
He says he would like to see information about air pollution levels available “on the television, in the newspapers, on the Council’s website… so that Aucklanders are informed and then they can make decisions themselves”.
Auckland residents can improve air quality by switching from woodfires to a cleaner heating solution, and making the move to public transport – something he says is already happening, but not fast enough.
“We’ve got more and more Aucklanders that are making the shift to public transport… and that’s a fantastic success story that’s improving all the time, and we’ve got higher emissions standards so that’s also good… but of course we’ve got more cars on the road each year so that becomes an issue in itself,” he says.
“We have more people living in Auckland each year, so we need to do something about it and we need to act quickly.”
Watch the video for the full interview
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