China Shelves Action on Emissions
Thursday, February 16, 2012
The Chinese government has quietly sidelined plans to clean the fumes from truck and bus exhaust pipes. Announced this month, the decision to postpone the introduction of new diesel emissions standards by a critical 18 months contradicts the authorities’ recent promises to tighten control on air pollution.
China’s major cities, especially Beijing, are enveloped by a notorious, brown smog which results in thousands of premature deaths each year. Environmental groups have expressed outrage at this major backwards step, saying it demonstrates that public health concerns are less important to China’s leaders than the economics.
Last year, the state announced a new goal to reduce emissions of Nitrogen Oxides by 10%. And in January, Beijing began releasing hourly data on fine particulates, known as PM2.5, that cause smog and can enter the bloodstream. The introduction of new emissions standards should have been the main beam of China’s new clean air policy.
The China IV Standard for diesel emissions was issued in 2005 and was originally supposed to have been introduced nationwide on 1 January 2011. Similar to the Euro IV Standard, it would force truck manufacturers to install cleaner engines. But to be effective, it requires petrol stations to sell higher-grade fuel with lower levels of sulphur, which is currently not the case.
This is important because traffic, particularly diesel HGVs, has now overtaken coal burning as the primary source of air pollution. Studies suggest vehicle exhaust pipes contribute more than 70% of the nitrogen oxides in downtown Beijing and are the dominant source of roadside PM2.5 levels – and the biggest threat to health.
Without the new standards, environment officials lack a vital tool for achieving pollution targets. While there's a weaker impetus on truck and bus manufacturers and fleet operators to implement preventative measures such as exhaust after-treatment.