(Bloomberg) -- The U.K. government has unveiled a plan to significantly reduce air pollution by setting targets that fall in line with World Health Organization recommendations -- and go further than current European Union rules.

The Clean Air Strategy will focus on the public’s exposure to particulate matter, which can damage human health. If successful, the plan will save the U.K. economy 1.7 billion pounds ($2.2 billion) a year by 2020 because of people taking fewer sick days and visiting the doctor less frequently, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said.

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Defra will reveal how it intends to meet WHO targets later this year as well as introducing new legislation around limiting the use of wood-burning stoves and laws requiring farmers to use low-emissions technologies.

The Background

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• “The adoption of the WHO targets as an aspiration is highly laudable, and sets the U.K. apart in the scale of its ambition,” said Alastair Lewis, Professor of Atmospheric Chemistry at the National Centre for Atmospheric Science at the University of York. “The wide range of simultaneous actions being proposed, and sectors and pollutants being targeted, is a reflection that further improving air quality in the U.K. is getting harder and harder, now the big industrial and combustion sources are under control."

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