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Beijing tightens vehicle exhaust

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2009-07-31 07:52

As of Oct 1, motor vehicles registered outside Beijing that fail to meet exhaust emissions standards will be banned from entering the capital.

The Ministry of Environmental Protection said Thursday that gasoline-powered vehicles will not be allowed to travel along or within Beijing's Sixth Ring Road, the city's outermost highway loop, if their exhaust emissions do not comply with National Emission Standard I.

Diesel-driven vehicles must comply with National Emission Standard III or higher before they can operate in the same area.

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Cui Mingming, an official with the ministry's department of pollution control, said the new rule applies to vehicles registered outside Beijing because many regions have not yet made the standards mandatory.

To further reduce pollution caused by car exhaust, vehicles entering Beijing must comply with the standards that 3.7 million local vehicles already do, she said.

The rule would likely affect old vehicles because strict emission standards are already applied to new cars.

Standard I, which is equivalent to the Euro I standard, allows an average vehicle to emit a maximum of 2.7 grams of carbon monoxide per kilometer among other exhausts, whereas Standard IV requires less than 1 gram of carbon monoxide and 0.08 gram of nitrogen oxide per km.

China introduced Standards I, II and III respectively in 2000, 2005, and 2007. Standard IV will be adopted nationwide in 2010.

Beijing became the first Chinese city to enforce Standard IV on newly bought and produced cars on March 1, 2008.