Welcome to the Green Alliance podcast, with a charity and think tank that's all about achieving ambitious leadership for the environment.

I'm Philip O'Uroman. I'm a policy advisor here at Green Alliance. In this podcast, we're going to be discussing the problem of air pollution and its most effective solution, clean air zones, otherwise known as Kazes or CAZs. Air pollution is the UK's biggest environmental health threat and every year,

up to 36,000 people die prematurely as a result of dirty air in the UK. A recent inquest found

for the first time somebody had tragically died as a direct result of poor air quality. Ella Kizzy Debra was a

nine-year-old girl living in London and she developed serious asthma as a result of the emissions on

local roads near her home. Things urgently need to change to save lives and improve public health

and clean air zones are an important part of this answer. But what are they? Well, the're areas of a city where the most polluting vehicles are charged to enter.

This can encourage people to drive cleaner vehicles, to take up walking, cycling or make use of

public transport.

And not only does it ensure clean air, but it can also cut our carbon emissions.

London has had a cleaner zone since 2008 and Bath became the second

city in the UK to finally introduce one. We're expecting a few more to take shape this year.

But the rollout of clean air zones across the country has experienced years of delays and the

pandemic has just further exacerbated this. As people stayed at home, air pollution became less

of a concern. But people staying at home isn't a sustainable solution to air quality.

And as we recover from COVID, we need long-term, stable solutions which are cleaner zone provides.

But better air quality isn't just good for public health in the environment.

It's also been shown to benefit the local economy in terms of

fewer accidents, greater productivity and more active travel. And there's another reason all of this

matters, and that is the law. For this podcast, I spoke to somebody who's been campaigning for

cleaner air for years. Andrea Lee is the campaigns and policy manager at the environmental law firm,

Klein Earth. In preventing ill health, there's that burden of the NHS, but also reducing the burden

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