Air pollution: UK environment ministers face court action within weeks

Law firm ClientEarth says it will seek urgent court action because of the risk to people's lives from dangerous emissions

UK environment ministers will be taken to court within weeks to make them speed up plans to reduce dangerous urban air pollution.

Law firm ClientEarth, which last year forced the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) to come up with fresh plans to tackle illegal NO2 levels in British cities, warned that it would seek urgent court action because thousands of people's lives were at risk if present government plans were not strengthened.