The former Olympic city of Beijing will impose stricter emission standards for its five million vehicles from 2012 onwards.
According to Zhang Lijun, the vice minister of environmental protection, the city will apply the V standard, which is based on Euro 5.
Speaking to Xinhua, he commented that the number of motor vehicles on Beijing’s roads almost quadrupled from one million in 1997 to 4.76million at the end of 2010 – which meant a vast increase in congestion and harm to the environment.
With research showing that more than three quarters of total air pollution comes from vehicle carbon monoxide and hydrocarbon emissions, the Beijing municipal government is now expected to raise vehicle emission standards again. It has already raised standards four times from standard I in 1999 to standard IV in 2008; and with each raise, pollutants from a single vehicle dropped by 30-50 per cent.
