Breathing without borders: challenges in improving air quality in cross-border regions - 13WS21431

Air quality is a common good and the interdependencies between regions become even more visible in cross-border areas, where this topic has become a sensitive issue and where citizens are actively advocating for stronger measures from local authorities.

How can the ambitious "Zero pollution plan" be achieved in cross-border areas, where two political systems converge and where border obstacles appear?

How can we better harmonise data to build bold environmental health policies for each inhabitant?

The session will deal with three main challenges related to air quality in border regions:

• The need to solve obstacles by acting at different levels;
• The lack of harmonised data between local and national observatories to measure the sources of pollution;
• The political and governance dimension, where local groups of citizens in cross-border areas are putting pressure on local authorities to take bolder action.