I DOUBT diesel cars will ever vanish from the streets of the Philippines, but in the wake of the Volkswagen scandal, more and more countries are attempting to banish diesel vehicles from their roads.
South Korea is the latest country to seriously crack down on emissions, with diesel engines its latest target. Quite simply, South Korea wants cleaner cars on its roads. The government has vowed to create and apply policies that will bring electric vehicle sales to 30 percent of its domestic market by the end of this decade.
The objective is even more impressive than Germany’s, a country that wants one million electric cars on its roads as by 2020.
The South Korean government is also considering banning diesel-engined vehicles from entering Seoul, its capital city. And the country’s diesel buses will be replaced by modern equivalents that will work on CNG or compressed natural gas.
Meanwhile, the mayor of Paris has called for diesel cars to be banned from the French capital by 2020. Mayor Anne Hidalgo said: “I want to see the end of diesel in Paris by 2020,” but added exceptions could be made for low-income car owners to allow them to use old vehicles but only occasionally.
India, which has a major toxic smog problem in cities like New Delhi, is investigating ways to reduce diesel emissions, such as a ban on the sale of all vehicles with diesel engines larger than a capacity of 2000cc.
And British ecologists say that air pollution from vehicles is killing tens of thousands of people every year in the UK alone.
According to a recent report, one of the most significant causes of air pollution is cars. Nitrogen oxide emissions from diesel vehicles alone is responsible for around 75,000 premature deaths in Europe each year while air pollution contributes to the deaths of 29,000 people a year in the UK with diesel cars being a key contributor.
Echoing this is the newly-elected London Mayor Sadiq Khan who announced plans to crack down on air pollution, saying his own adult-onset asthma has increased his commitment to tackle a problem that accounts for the premature deaths of almost 10,000 people in the British capital each year.
Khan plans to extend the “Ultra-Low Emission Zone” to increase the congestion charge in central London for the most polluting vehicles and give the green light to a “Transport for London” program to scrap diesel vehicles.
Hong Kong, which has a major air pollution problem, is looking at banning older diesel trucks from entering the city center.
According to the World Health Organization, nearly half of the world’s people breathes unsafe air, with populations in developing countries disproportionately exposed.
One-third (1.3 billion) of these people live in the East Asia and Pacific region, where in China and South Korea more than 50 percent of their populations are exposed to unsafe levels of fine particulate matter.
Manila air is definitely unsafe. President Rodrigo Duterte has been strangely quiet on the subject of air pollution. One just hopes that in between uttering colorful statements, he would give this pressing subject some attention.
(Robert Harland is a British national based in Bacolod City.)