National Clean Air Day. Is Nice airport too polluting?

The figure captured more than one in 2020, during the COVID-related lockdown: 80% fewer ultrafine particles, PUF, identified at Nice airport! Obviously linked to a virtual disappearance of air traffic at that time.

With 12 million travelers in 2022, Nice Côte d’Azur airport is the third busiest in France. Hence the interest for air measurement organizations to take measurements there.

On a daily basis, according to AtmoSud, 17% of NOx emissions (We call NOx the emissions of nitrogen oxides emitted by the combustion of fossil fuels Editor’s note), are carried out by Nice Côte d’Azur airport. The rest comes in particular from traffic linked to road traffic. An important parameter also comes into play, the direction of the wind.

Update this October 14 in real time in Nice:

Another unit used to measure pollution is the rate of PUF, ultrafine particles. In lesser quantity within the airport, 7.5% of total pollution, in Nice.

But their impact on health is significant, because they penetrate deeper into the respiratory system.

Thanks to the real-time measuring station at the airport site itself, “we know” explains Maïthé Rosier, responsible for territorial action at AtmoSud, “that the air is no more polluted in this place than in the rest of the metropolis. As long as you stick to regulated pollutants.”

But if we talk about the famous PUF, ultrafine particles, then that reshuffles the cards.

“What we observed”explains Maïthé Rosier “this is because the particle rate is directly linked to the activity of the planes, during landings or takeoffs it will increase”. In figures, when in the Nice Côte d’Azur Metropolis the average PUF level is 20,000 per cm³, at the airport it can reach 100,000 per cm³ according to AtmoSud.

A figure that sends shivers down your spine and is comparable to the pollution encountered in industrial zones. But not illegal!

For Thierry Bitouzé, co-founder of Collectif Citoyen 06, “this airport which spends its time saying that it produces 0 carbon is a huge lie, only they believe it. You take a 5-year-old child walking along the Promenade des Anglais, you ask him if the airport pollutes, he will obviously say yes.”

Nice airport generates 1 million tonnes of CO2 every year, which is half of what the entire Nice Côte d’Azur metropolis emits in a year.

Thierry Bitouzé, co-founder of Collectif Citoyen 06 at France 3 Côte d’Azur

All the more worrying, with the extension of the airport desired by Mayor Christian Estrosi, according to this association, 20,000 more flights each year are expected.

The airport is committed, as it is reiterated on its website, to aim for carbon neutrality without compensation for its own emissions from 2030.