Have a polluting vehicle? Then give Beijing a wide berth. You are no longer welcome here. Starting in June, any vehicles driving into China’s capital must carry an “Environmentally Friendly” label issued by their local authorities, Gasgoo reports. Environmental oinkers will be banned from driving inside the 5th Ring Road of the capital. From October 1, vehicles not meeting the standard can’t enter the capital’s areas inside the 6th Ring Road—a monster more than 100 miles long surrounding Beijing well outside the city proper. Part of a far-reaching plan to clear the air in China’s capital.
This follows a ban of “yellow plate” (polluting, not meeting Euro 4) vehicles that was enacted January 1, 2009. It removed 300,000 polluting cars from the inner city streets, with amazing effect. I can actually see the horizon from my window. Last year, we could barely see the next building.
But what about the other green? Asked whether out-of-town vehicles delivering fresh vegetables, fruits and other farm produce to Beijing will be banned also, an official said the authorities “are studying” the matter. Translation: “Ooops, didn’t think of that.”
I lived in China for a long time.
They’ve got multiple enviro-problems.
#1 They’ve got the “asian brown clowd” which due to the corriolis effect drags pollution from the west towards the east – blanketing beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong. I didn’t see this in Tokyo Japan though.
If you wash a surface (like a car) and leave it outside, less than 3 hours later, it will be blanketed with dust. I know those people there have environmental caused health problems due to excessive dust in the air. And in some parts of the country they still burn dirty coal.
#2 They are overcrowded. During the hottest points of the day ozone/smog production is at its highest so the overcrowding of the streets with vehicles in Beijing and Shanghai doesn’t help anyone.
If ANY Goveernment can reduce the pollution from vehicles, I KNOW the PRC can. They can basically pass a law tommorrow demanding all cars sold there be low emmission…but that isn’t going to help the environmental problems caused externaly.
I am very amaized how quickly the PRC cleaned up the Bund’s river in Shanghai. When I was there in 2002 it was horrificly polluted but now, there’s nare a piece of trash in it in sight.
Flashpoint:
The dust is sand. From the Gobi desert. Big problem. Tough to control. Even if they pass a law against the sand, the sand will ignore it.
The law against selling low emission cars is long passed, Euro 4 is standard in most big cities, and will be standard nation-wide soon. The amazing thing is that they are taking the old cars off the road, instead of grandfathering them.
Sounds like nothing but a new revenue stream for the corrupt local councils to me. I bet anything can get it for the right price.
Is there anywhere in this world that won’t suck within the next 5-10 years?
# MaxHedrm :
May 22nd, 2009 at 8:28 am
Sounds like nothing but a new revenue stream for the corrupt local councils to me. I bet anything can get it for the right price.
It probably won’t be as bad for something like this, especially if they’re being spot checked. I get the impression people will try to get around it by bootlegging stickers.
Is California and China stealing “ideas” from each other or just sharing similar ideology?
I was in China 3 years ago and the people need all the help the government can give them for cleaner air. There is a tremendous problem with Gobi Desert dust also (which the Chinese are trying to solve at least a little bit with a huge tree planting effort) but pollution from vehicles and coal burning are the real killers.
Good luck to them. And remember their air travels to the U.S. Most of the sand and pollution probably falls out but not all of it.