Waiting for an answer from on high

It seems that the long-suffering inhabitants of Spain's biggest cities, their respiratory systems choked by car fumes and diesel particles, are just going to have to put up with the problem; or pray for rain. Everybody admits that there are too many cars and trucks on the roads, which bring with them dangerously high levels of air pollution that exceed European Union legal safety levels. But nobody wants to leave the car at home, and with just three months to go before the country's municipal elections, none of the main political parties will go near the issue.

Five years ago, on February 9, 2006, a front of high pressure over Madrid brought blue skies, albeit somewhat obscured by the brown haze of air pollution that threatened to exceed EU safety limits. City Hall issued a warning on its website telling residents not to go jogging or cycling. Air pollution levels were approaching critical. (Since then, they have dropped; mainly because the traffic monitors have either been switched off, or moved to parks and the city's leafier areas.)

"Spanish drivers are not prepared to leave the car at home"

For an alert to be declared, all six monitors must point to a NO2 excess

But back to 2006: Mayor Alberto Ruiz-Gallardón called a press conference to discuss the issue of air pollution. He announced a ¤500-million plan aimed at limiting access to the city center to vehicles that didn't meet clean air requirements. It was to be implemented in 2008, following the previous year's local elections. "It is a good plan, and that is why, regardless of who is running Madrid from 2007, it will continue to be put into action. And not only is it a good plan, it is something that we have to do. We have to take measures if we are to meet European air quality legislation for 2010," the mayor declared.

Then nothing was heard about the proposals for cycle routes through the capital and traffic curbs until last November, when Gallardón announced that he would be restricting motor vehicle access to the center of Madrid... after next May's elections. It isn't clear why nothing was done to reduce traffic levels in the city five years ago, but this time round the excuse is that at a time of crisis, limiting access to the million or so people who enter Madrid each day with their cars would be economic suicide.

Madrid is run by the center-right Popular Party, but refusal to face up to the fact that there are too many vehicles on the roads of Spain's cities cuts across the political spectrum. Earlier this week, the Socialist Party mayor of Barcelona, Jordi Hereu, said he would not be restricting traffic access. His environment chief, Imma Mayol of the leftist-green ICV, ruled out any question of limiting traffic, arguing that the city's pollution levels were manageable. The coalition government in the Catalan capital has instead decided to reduce speed limits on the roads leading into Barcelona to 80 kilometers per hour until it rains and the heavens clean the air. Yet even this relatively timid measure has been seized on as excessive by the nationalist Artur Mas, who heads the regional government of Catalonia, and is a central platform of his campaign to take the capital in May.

But the move has its supporters. "The measure was insufficient, but the speed limit has worked. I doubt that any other initiatives would obtain the same results," argues José María Baldasano, a professor at the Polytechnic University of Catalonia.

Antonio Serrano, an academic and a Environment Ministry official, says that from his experience there is little chance any of the country's mayors are prepared to reduce traffic.

"I must have had thousands of conversations about this with mayors, asking them to impose traffic restrictions. Most of them agree that something has to be done, but always use the excuse of the elections. That's just the way it is, sadly," he said. Indeed, there seems to be near universal agreement that protecting the environment and the air we breathe is a vote loser.

Ángel Valencia Sáiz, professor of Political Science at the University of Málaga, says that his research backs this up. "Spanish drivers are not prepared to leave the car at home. Imposing traffic restrictions is a much bigger vote loser than not being able to keep the air clean in our cities." He is the co-author of a study on environmental awareness published last November. The report shows that just 10 percent of Spaniards are prepared to use their car less "for environmental reasons," as opposed to 17 percent in the EU overall, and 25 percent in France.

Over the last two weeks, as another bout of high pressure has meant no rain in the capital, sending pollution levels way above EU limits, the mayor and the head of the city's environment department, Ana Botella, have tried to play down the problem of air pollution. Botella, who shares the skepticism of her husband, former Prime Minister José María Aznar, about humankind's role in global warming, has gone on the counterattack. She first accused the Socialist Party of trying to climb on the bandwagon ahead of the May elections, and then said that Madrileños were more concerned about unemployment than the quality of the air they breathe.

In the meantime, City Hall has called on drivers to use public transport. The response: a 0.23-percent reduction in traffic on Madrid's M-30 beltway. Mayor Gallardón has spent 6 billion euros over the last decade hiding the M-30 from view, putting large sections underground.

It is worth looking at how City Hall establishes alert levels. The capital is divided into six zones, with air-quality monitors in each. For an alert to be declared, all monitors in all six zones must register an excess of 400 micrograms of NO2, the noxious gas in car fumes, for at least three hours. Given that the 1,800 hectares of the Casa de Campo park on the western edge of the city occupies one of the zones, by the time levels there passed the legal limits, the rest of the city would have done so several times over. And in fact this is already the case in some parts of downtown Madrid.

Environmental group Ecologists in Action, one of the leading voices in raising awareness of the problem of air pollution in Spain, accuses Madrid City Hall of trying to hide the problem. "In Madrid, there are periods that exceed the legal limit for an entire year, yet somehow, we never reach the point when an alert is issued."

Over the last two decades, Spaniards have fallen in love with diesel vehicles, largely due to the cheaper cost of the fuel. But diesel particles remain in the atmosphere longer than those of gasoline. Madrid's mayor has called on the government to stop giving tax breaks to buyers of diesel vehicles. In 2007, Congress approved measures allowing city halls to set a vehicle road tax on the basis of how much pollution they produced.

The Environment Ministry and the Spanish Federation of Municipalities and Provinces (FEMP) have called on the Treasury to change the law accordingly, so far without success. The environment hasn't exactly been the government's número uno priority in recent years. For example, it has shelved proposals to oblige companies to provide collective transport for their employees. Environment Minister Rosa Aguilar this week met with the head of the FEMP on Thursday to discuss air pollution and to "look at all possible measures," among them changing the law on road tax.

Back in 2006, when the country last faced such a prolonged dry period, the bishop of Murcia called on the faithful to pray for rain. In the absence of any initiatives from our politicians, it's probably as good an idea as any.