Bumpy Ride As China’s Auto Market Booms, Leaders Clash Over Heavy Toll
Vehicles Foul Air, Jam Streets But Plump Local Coffers; Restrictions Remain Few
McDonald’s Targets a Niche
By GORDON FAIRCLOUGH and SHAI OSTER
June 13, 2006; Page A1
Excerpt from article, below:
High Toll
The toll is high. Exhaust from an estimated 2.5 million vehicles has helped make Beijing one of the most polluted cities in China, even though it has shuttered many of the coal-burning factories that once fouled its air. In 2004, levels of airborne particulate in Beijing were more than six times as high as in New York, and sulfur-dioxide levels were more than double, according to Chinese and U.S. government figures.
It wasn’t until 2000 that China passed its first comprehensive emissions law and made catalytic converters, which clean vehicle exhaust, mandatory. China has modeled is auto-emissions standards after those in Europe. Still, most of the country still lags behind Europe, using rules implemented there back in 1996. Beijing has a stricter standard, in line with regulations set by the European Union in 2000. The entire nation is slated to move to that cleaner standard by 2008.
Emissions testing for cars has been spotty, and experts complain that little is known about what comes out of China’s tailpipes. Beijing officials say that more than 60% of the vehicles in the city have some emissions controls, an acknowledgment that up to 40% of them – mostly older models – have none at all.
In 2005, China imposed its first fuel-efficiency standards, which some analysts say will eventually be stricter than in the U.S. Earlier this year, the central government called on cities like Beijing to lift bans originally imposed on small cars in order to encourage purchases of more energy-efficient models. The government also instituted a graduated tax on new cars, designed to discourage purchases of gas guzzlers.
But to really limit cars’ environmental toll and energy consumption, experts such as Lee Schipper, director of research at the World Resources Institute’s Embarq Center for Transportation and the Environment in Washington, D.C., say China needs to levy road-use fees, lift gas prices and encourage the use of mass transit, as well as hybrid and electric vehicles.
“The rapid rate of growth is more than government institutions are prepared to deal with,” says Mr. Schipper. When he suggests to local officials that Chinese cities limit the number of cars on the road, he says they resist. “They say: ‘You can’t restrict cars.’ “
Lee Schipper, EMBARQ FounderLee Schipper is Project Scientist with Global Metropolitan Studies at UC Berkeley.
