Co-ordinated international activities to abate European PM emissions

Recognizing effects of ambient levels of particulate matter (PM) on human health has lead to considerable activities to understand sources and assess abatement potential for PM. Specifically the significant contributions of long range transport and atmospheric formation pose a new challenge to dealing with the old PM issue, previously considered responsible for local air pollution only. PM now is regarded a transboundary problem, with effective solutions possible only on an international scale. While the political process is only slowly taking PM into international agreements, a number of activities have been launched already on the European scale. This paper reviews information on some of the most important activities.