We protect our kids from smoking, so why do cars get a free ride?

Since the 1990s, Australia has been a global leader in creating smoke-free zones. Aware of the mounting health impacts, we banned cigarette smoking in shopping centres, playgrounds, schools, and in cars with minors. This has cleaned up our air and significantly reduced our kids’ exposure to harmful second-hand smoke.

Yet all of us, regardless of smoking status, still inhale another harmful type of air pollution – exhaust fumes from the petrol and diesel cars and trucks on our roads.

Children grow up with the consequences of traffic pollution.Credit: Joe Armao

According to a recent Climate Council analysis, there are more than 3000 Australian schools and childcare centres operating close to major roads. But just last week, a world-first study found that Australian children exposed to high levels of air pollution from birth could have increased odds of developing a peanut allergy, and a likelihood it will persist across the first 10 years of life.

This is a troubling reminder that improving our air quality plays a bigger role in our children’s long-term health. Peanut allergies are common among young Australians, affecting 3 per cent of children under 12 months.

For many parents, it’s unsettling to think that the air around the places where their children learn and play could be contributing to long-term health challenges. With so many children at risk, minimising their exposure to air pollutants makes a real difference.

We’ve all experienced the stench of petrol fumes, especially in congested cities. Our children are even more vulnerable to the effects. The more time that children spend near busy roads, the greater their exposure to traffic-related air pollution and the greater their risk of poor health outcomes due to their faster breathing rates, and immature lungs and immune systems.

As a doctor with young children, I’m painfully aware of what’s happening to their bodies when our kids breathe traffic pollution. Prolonged exposure has been linked to higher rates of childhood asthma, and increased hospitalisations for respiratory conditions – in many cases, similar to the poor health outcomes associated with passive smoking. Children exposed to harmful air pollution are more likely to suffer lifelong health impacts such as reduced lung function. In pregnancy, breathing in pollutants increases the risk of low birth weight babies and premature babies, which can have long-term impacts for those children.

But there’s hope. Unlike smoking bans, which took years to implement, we already have solutions to dramatically reduce traffic pollution, and they’re ready to go. There is no reason why we can’t clean up our roads and our lungs at the same time. By accelerating the shift towards cleaner transport, we can reduce air pollution from traffic that’s clogging our streets. This also cuts the climate pollution that’s overheating our planet. We’ve already started doing this by accelerating the shift to electric vehicles, powering our grid with clean energy and providing more people with cleaner ways of getting around.

The New Vehicle Efficiency Standard in force from January 1 is a step in the right direction. It’s expected to prevent 20 million tonnes of climate pollution by 2030 and 80 million tonnes by 2035. This gives Australians better access to low- and zero-emission vehicles while reducing the need for polluting petrol and diesel cars. Expanding shared and active transport options – such as walking, cycling and public transport – will cut traffic pollution even further. These cleaner, healthier alternatives to private car travel can rapidly improve the air quality around our schools and neighbourhoods, making them safer for everyone.

Cleaner cars, safer streets and healthier ways to get around will let our kids learn and play without risking their health. But to ensure younger generations enjoy that safer future, we also need to take on fossil fuels, since burning coal, oil and gas are major contributors to air pollution. The industries that are making us sick, producing most of the toxins we’re breathing in and overheating the planet, are still propped up by billions in government subsidies.

It’s time to treat traffic pollution with the same urgency as we treated smoking. In my lifetime, I want to see fewer people turning up sick in our health system because of air pollution. Cleaner cars, safer streets and healthier ways to get around will mean our children can learn and play outside without risking their health every time they take a breath.

Slashing air pollution would be a breath of fresh air, quite literally. Our lungs, and our kids, will thank us for it.

Dr Kate Charlesworth is a public health physician and councillor with the Climate Council.