I'm morbidly following BeijingAir for the latest tweets on a continuing horror story. (Actually, this morning the pollution is not too bad.) Via Reuters AlertNet: Beijing to slap tougher emission standards on vehicles -Xinhua. Excerpt:
Beijing plans to implement harsher emission standards for vehicles starting next month, one of its latest emergency measures to curb the city's air pollution, official Xinhua News Agency reported on Wednesday.
The new Beijing V emission standard, similar to the Euro V standard in Europe, will be adopted as of Feb. 1, Xinhua cited Fang Li, spokesman for the Beijing Municipal Environmental Protection Bureau, as saying.
The new rule applies to vehicles that have yet to receive licence plates and not those already in use.
Sales and plate registrations for diesel-powered vehicles that fail to meet the new standards will be halted, and sales of gasoline cars that cannot meet the standards will be banned from March.
The number of private cars in Beijing, among China's most populous cities with a population of 20 million, is still growing fast.
Beijing's total number of vehicles is likely to hit 6 million by 2015, up from 5.2 million, Xinhua said.I vividly recall Paul Ehrlich talking on CBC Radio in the early 1970s, saying: "Can you imagine if everyone in China had a car? The atmosphere would burn up." He wasn't far wrong.
