Roundup: Increasingly tough measures imposed across Italy to face pollution alert

Increasingly tough measures were enforced across Italy starting on Monday as the country faced persistent high levels of air pollution.

The Italian capital imposed a nine-hour partial ban on motor vehicles, with cars and motorcycles with single and double of last plate numbers being prevented from use in the inner city on Monday and Tuesday, respectively.

Rome's commissioner Paolo Tronca issued the ban after the city saw levels of particulate matter (PM10) and nitrogen dioxide (NO2) in the air exceeding the legal daily limits for 12 days and six days, respectively, in the two weeks before Christmas.

The same partial car ban was to be applied in the northern city of Bergamo on Tuesday and Wednesday, and will be repeated on Jan. 4 and 5.

Authorities in Milan called a total ban of motor vehicles between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. from Monday to Wednesday. While the same measure was imposed in the city of Pavia, and 12 other towns within the province of Milan.

The alert in Milan, the capital of Lombardy region and Italy's major industrial hub, was particularly high after the PM10 daily limit of 50 micrograms per cubic meter (50 µg/m3) was breached for 31 consecutive days up to Dec. 25.

European Union (EU) legislation for air pollutants applies to all EU member states. It rules daily levels of PM10 cannot exceed the limit of 50 µg/m3 for more than 35 days in a year, and its annual average amount cannot surpass 40 µg/m3.

For NO2, the daily limit is 200 µg/m3, and it cannot be exceeded for more than 18 days in a year, while the annual average amount is 40 µg/m3.

In Rome, Milan and Turin, public transportation was encouraged by letting the one-way ticket to be valid for a whole day.

Authorities in smaller cities also decided to target other habits possibly polluting the air, such as cooking in wood-fired ovens.

Among those imposing the measure were Venice, Alessandria in the Po Valley, which ranked as Italy's second most air-polluted city in 2015, and the southern town of San Vitaliano near Naples.

Warm temperatures and rain shortage contributed consistently to the persistent high levels of pollutants, according to local environment experts and meteorologists.

Italian Environment Minister Luca Galletti called an emergency meeting with regional governors, mayors, and the head of the civil protection Department to be held on Wednesday.

The meeting's aim will be to "find a common and coordinated answer and avoid random initiatives, since the air pollution emergency might still last long, and recur more and more in the future," the minister said in a statement.

A warning also came from Italy's health authorities, as the head of the National Institute for Health (ISS) Walter Ricciardi told local media the current pollution levels were to be seen as "risky for the whole population, and not only for most vulnerable people such as children and elderly".

Meanwhile, the Italian cabinet came under fire from opposition forces for allegedly not tackling the issue with an adequate strategy.

Leader of anti-immigration Northern League party Matteo Salvini blamed the government for not implementing tougher measures on most polluting machinery, such as oil-fired boilers for industrial facilities and domestic central heating systems.

The total ban on vehicles in Milan "does not solve the problem, only bothers those people who want to work," Salvini claimed.

Comedian-turned-politician Beppe Grillo with anti-establishment Five Stars Movement (M5S) accused Prime Minister Matteo Renzi and his cabinet ministers of "carelessly walking on the corpses of 68,000 Italians, which they have failed to protect".

The number of 68,000 referred to additional deaths the National Institute for Statistics (ISTAT) registered in 2015 compared to 2014, yet considering all causes of death.

Galletti responded to the accusations by saying that "the Environment Ministry allocated a 5-million-euro (5.5 million U.S. dollars) fund to municipalities willing to implement anti-pollution measures".

The cabinet allocated further 35 million euros to boost sustainable transport with a provision approved last week.

"We are ready to increase these resources, if they will prove insufficient," the minister told Naples-based Il Mattino daily. Enditem