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Barcelona poised to introduce congestion charge in bid to cut pollution

Barcelona's left-wing mayor said Wednesday she was considering a congestion charge in Spain's second largest city to reduce traffic and air pollution.

Published: 18 July 2019 09:28 CEST

Barcelona poised to introduce congestion charge in bid to cut pollution

Photo: AFP

Barcelona's left-wing mayor said Wednesday she was considering a congestion charge in Spain's second largest city to reduce traffic and air pollution.

Introducing a road toll like those already operating in London and other European cities “is one of the measures which we have on the table”, Ada Colau said during an interview with local television.

The Mediterranean coastal city which is home to some 1.6 million residents will already ban older, more polluting vehicles as of January 1, 2020.

As of that date, gasoline-powered cars registered before 2000, and diesel-powered cars registered before 2006, will be banned from most of the city's roads.

The move will affect around 125,000 cars and will reduce air pollution levels by 15 percent by 2024, according to city hall.

“It may not be enough and we will have to consider other measures, like a toll charge,” Colau said without giving further details.

Ada Colau is serving a second term as mayor of Barcelona. Photo: AFP

Barcelona has since 2002 exceeded the level of carbon dioxide in the air set by the European Union, according to a 2017 report by the city public health department.

Barcelona's poor air quality caused a yearly average of 424 premature deaths between 2010 and 2017, the report said.

READ ALSO Madrid Central: Five reasons why scrapping anti-pollution traffic is absurd

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Greenpeace sounds alarm over Spain's 'poisonous mega farms'

Pollution from hundreds of intensive pig farms played a major role in the collapse of Murcia Mar Menor saltwater lagoon. Photo: JOSEP LAGO / AFP

The number of farm animals raised in Spain has jumped by more than a third since 2015 to around 560 million in 2020, it said in the report entitled “Mega farms, poison for rural Spain”.

This “excessive and uncontrolled expansion of industrial animal farming” has had a “serious impact on water pollution from nitrates”, it said.

Three-quarters of Spain’s water tables have seen pollution from nitrates increase between 2016 and 2019, the report said citing Spanish government figures.

Nearly 29 percent of the country’s water tables had more than the amount of nitrate considered safe for drinking, according to a survey carried out by Greenpeace across Spain between April and September.

The environmental group said the government was not doing enough.

It pointed out that the amount of land deemed an “area vulnerable to nitrates” has risen to 12 million hectares in 2021, or 24 percent of Spain’s land mass, from around eight million hectares a decade ago, yet industrial farming has continued to grow.

“It is paradoxical to declare more and more areas vulnerable to nitrates”, but at the same time allow a “disproportionate rise” in the number of livestock on farms, Greenpeace said.

Pollution from hundreds of intensive pig farms played a major role in the collapse of one of Europe’s largest saltwater lagoons, the Mar Menor in Spain’s southeast, according to a media investigation published earlier this week.

Scientists blamed decades of nitrate-laden runoffs for triggering vast blooms of algae that had depleted the water of the lagoon of oxygen, leaving fish suffocating underwater.

Two environmental groups submitted a formal complaint in early October to the European Union over Spain’s failure to protect the lagoon.

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