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Resolution 1776 (2010) Final version
Noise and light pollution
1. The Parliamentary Assembly notes
and deplores the fact that the continent of Europe is particularly affected,
in environmental terms, by both noise and light nuisances.
2. It refers in this connection to the World Health Organization
(WHO) Guidelines for community noise, which were intended to provide
legislative guidance without binding effect in themselves, and European
Union Directive 2002/49/EC relating to the assessment and management
of environmental noise, proposing a common approach by member states
and requiring strategic noise mapping and introduction of action
plans in the countries of the European Union.
3. The Assembly recalls that noise pollution may have many causes:
mobile mechanical sources (chiefly motor vehicles and aircraft);
fixed mechanical sources (machines, factories, etc.); one-off or
ongoing operations and work sites (quarrying); public demonstrations
and events (one-off or, less often, ongoing: celebrations, fireworks,
festivals, concerts, places of musical entertainment and stadiums);
animal sources (barking, noises from livestock farms, shelters,
etc.); the neighbourhood (buildings with poor soundproofing, lawnmowers,
children, accidentally triggered alarms); portable audio devices
and mobile phones on public transport, etc.
4. Its effects can be serious, possibly disastrous for the environment
overall, through disturbance of ecosystems (terrestrial as well
as marine and aquatic), but also through the development of pathologies
in mankind.
5. As to light pollution, the Assembly emphasises that the Starlight
Declaration, signed by UNESCO in 1992, seeks chiefly to preserve
an “unpolluted” night sky, and hopes that similar provision will
be made in all national legislations.
6. Furthermore, light pollution affecting flora and fauna poses
one of the worst threats to urban biodiversity, but above all has
harmful effects on the human metabolism.
7. Moreover, the energy consumption caused by excessive lighting
has indirect implications for the environment, for example pollution
associated with the production and transmission of that energy.
8. The Assembly, bearing in mind the Stockholm Declaration of
1972, adopted by the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment,
which expressly acknowledged the link between protection of the environment
and human rights, its Recommendation
1863 (2009) on environment and health: better prevention of
environment-related health hazards and its Recommendation 1885 (2009) on drafting
an additional protocol to the European Convention on Human Rights
concerning the right to a healthy environment, invites member and
non-member states to find a common approach for combating the harmful
effects of noise and light pollution by taking measures aimed at:
8.1. introducing threshold values
for noise and light into environmental medicine, imposing penalties for
offenders and establishing maximum reference values for noise in
connection with the WHO guidelines;
8.2. creating permanent observatories for noise as tools for
aiding decision making and public information, as well as regional
observatories for light covering the entire territory;
8.3. disseminating the findings of noise pollution observation
in real time, as is often the case with air pollution or road traffic;
8.4. developing plans for preventing and combating noise in
all municipalities in the same ways as urban development plans and
encouraging participative arrangements;
8.5. taking account of noise “peaks” and event noise indicators
to complement energy level indicators, to better reflect the nuisance
levels expressed by communities;
8.6. establishing a classification of rolling stock, along
the lines of the International Civil Aviation Organization classification
of aircraft, and further tightening constraints in relation to noise
emissions;
8.7. rationalising lighting in all municipalities by preparing
plans with participation by scientists – particularly astronomers
– and associations for the protection of the environment and the
sky and defining maximum lighting levels for roadways and sky;
8.8. controlling light spillage from all properties;
8.9. standardising and simplifying noise and light pollution
indicators as an indispensable means of understanding the respective
issues by the general public;
8.10. extending high environmental quality standards to noise
and light;
8.11. studying noise and light issues on school curricula and
educating the public, especially young people who are particularly
exposed to high-level noise in places of entertainment or from listening
to excessively loud music through earphones.
9. The Assembly also invites member and non-member states to:
9.1. frame policies to reduce traffic
and convert it to soft modes, by means of urban planning, taxation, vehicle
technology, individual and collective behaviour, etc.;
9.2. assist and support economically weak sectors (such as
rail freight) that work towards noise abatement;
9.3. promote co-ordinated noise/energy intervention in housing
stock, based on suitable training of the trades concerned and collective
projects covering districts or building complexes, ensuring that
all regulations are rigorously enforced and that the threshold levels
are respected, and take appropriate measures if these prove to be
ineffective;
9.4. involve acoustic technicians in all major development
projects;
9.5. make acoustics part of architects’ training;
9.6. support efforts to achieve noise abatement in the transport
sector, particularly regarding goods trains (by using long welded
rails, and preferably by using disc brakes), resurfacing of roads
and the development of soft transportation modes;
9.7. abate or even eliminate light pollution from public lighting
by using directional low-pressure sodium lamps and presence detectors,
and exploiting natural light;
9.8. integrate noise and light pollution problems into programmes
geared to aiding research and technological development.