Beijing's municipal government is mulling a plan to limit
vehicle exhaust, dust from construction sites and industrial
emissions to guarantee fresh air for the 2008 Olympic Games, an official said
yesterday.
Du Shaozhong, spokesman for the Beijing municipal environmental
protection bureau, said a team of experts is drafting the plan.
"It will take effect after the State Council approves it," Du
said during an online chat sponsored by sina.com yesterday.
He did not discuss any of the plan's details, saying only that
it would strictly regulate polluters and improve the environment.
He added that the plan would be completed soon.
Sources familiar with the plan said it includes regulations
limiting the amount of vehicles on the road and restricting their
emissions. It also targets floating dust from construction sites
and industrial emissions.
To support the plan, the city will very likely adopt grade IV
national discharge standards for newly registered vehicles starting
next year. Those standards are similar to the EU's Euro 4 standard,
which limits carbon monoxide and particulate matter discharges.
If the standards take effect, it would be two years ahead of the
national timeline laid out in the 11th Five-Year Plan
(2006-10).
In the public transport sector, the capital is to replace and
renovate outdated buses with new ones that meet the grade III
national standard by the end of the year.
Home to some 19,000 buses, Beijing would like to eventually have
the world's cleanest fleet, in part by putting about 4,000 natural
gas-powered buses into circulation.
Beijing will test its vehicle-control policies from August 17 to
20, when about half of the city's 3.05 million vehicles will be
ordered off the road. Du said the move would help the authorities
measure the effect traffic has on air quality.
"More importantly, we are studying policies to ensure blue skies
for Beijing in the long-run, not just for the Olympics," Du
said.
Since 1998, the capital's environmental watchdog has put
forwarded some 200 measures aimed at improving air quality to
ensure fresh air for the Games.
However, some experts have pointed out that loopholes
remain.
Ma Zhong, an environment professor at Beijing's Renmin
University of China, told China Daily that the government had doing
everything in its power to crack down on local polluters.
However, there are some "remote but crucial" factors that
negatively affect air quality.
"The pollution generated by people burning coal on Beijing's
outskirts and in neighboring provinces is an obvious concern,
however, so far little has been done to tackle the problem," Ma
said.
(China Daily August 14, 2007)
