[sustran] fwd: more on vehicle air pollution from CSE India

[SUSTRAN Resource Centre]

From: "webadmin" <webadmin at cseindia.org>
Organization: Centre for Science and Environment
Date: Tue, 16 May 2000 10:19:32 +530
Subject: What's new at CSE, India
...

What's new at the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), New Delhi, 
India

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Fatal lure

Whoops! Did you know your car can cause cancer? But before you press the 
panic button... wait! Chances are that if you drive a petrol car and so 
does everybody else in your city, you are one of the lucky ones who don't 
have to worry. Your chances of going down with cancer are higher if more 
and more people drive diesel cars in your area. We are not the only ones 
saying so, a lot of researchers agree with us.at..... 

http://www.oneworld.org/cse/html/dte/dte20000515/dte_analy.htm
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A message from the Director, Anil Agarwal:

SIAM's small step forward

VENU Srinivasan, the current head of the Society of Indian Automobile 
Manufacturers (SIAM), needs a pat on his back for the first proactive step 
proposed by the auto industry to control the growing pollution. SIAM 
recently proposed vehicular norms for different types of vehicles going 
well into the first decade of the 21st century. But as our colleagues in 
the Centre for Science and Environment's Our Right to Clean Air Campaign 
put it, "This step is a bit too little and too late." Even if we forget 
the 'late' part, SIAM needs to understand why the proposals are too 
inadequate. 

One can ask why is SIAM only proposing European norms for vehicular 
emissions when there are tighter norms in the world. This is presumably 
because India and Europe are closely tied to each other in trade and, 
therefore, if Indian norms mimic Euro norms, it makes it easier for auto 
manufacturers. But, the Euro norms have been fairly slack, especially on 
particulates, and criticism of these norms has been growing. Whereas 
particulates are relatively low in most of Europe's urban air, they are 
often the worst pollutant in most of India's urban air. 

Influenced by its powerful diesel engine industry, the EU has allowed 
diesel cars to have far more lax standards, especially for particulates. 
Studies in Europe itself are showing that even Euro IV norms to be 
implemented there in 2005 are so weak that they will not even encourage 
auto-makers to use the emerging technology of particulate traps which 
could cut pollution further. Therefore, the very idea that we should 
implement Euro norms without understanding the environmental and 
industrial interests of the Europeans should be taken with a pinch of 
salt, regardless of SIAM's level of comfort with them.

But beyond all this lies a major problem that has not been addressed by 
SIAM. Slowly tightening vehicular emission norms is an 'incremental 
strategy' for air pollution control. But SIAM needs to ask whether an 
incremental strategy alone will work in India? Delhi is already so 
polluted that such incremental strategies would never help to control its 
pollution especially with population and urban growth taking place 
simultaneously. But there are already several cities which are in a worse 
state than Delhi and many others are catching up fast - well within the 
time-frame that SIAM is talking about its emission standards. How does 
SIAM intend to deal with that situation? Now that it has hired a few 
technical experts, according to us mainly to counter the onslaught of the 
environmental community, why doesn't it employ them productively to come 
up with a package of policies that will help all Indian cities to achieve 
clean air by, say, 2005 or 2010? There is no doubt that the technical 
language of SIAM's affidavits to the Supreme Court has greatly improved in 
recent months even if it is to stop every 'green proposal' made. But 
surely this is not the only use of experts that our auto captains can 
make?

Our biggest worry, however, is not just the weakness of our industrial 
captains to take adequate notice of environmental and public health 
concerns but even more so of our political captains. The auto industry 
recently had a meeting with the minister of heavy industry Manohar Joshi 
to discuss the possible impact of World Trade Organisation (WTO) rules 
applicable to the auto industry from early next year. The political 
heavyweight, according to newspaper reports, assured the industry that he 
sees it as a key to India's industrial growth and will soon come out with 
a policy to help them deal with their problems. The big fear is that the 
WTO rules will allow import of second-hand cars, especially from Japan, 
which will adversely affect the Indian industry. The industry is 
apparently asking for a high customs duty on these cars. But we are sure 
that this wonderful minister will not consult the environmental community 
while framing his auto industry policy totally disregarding its existing 
and future public health impacts. 

In fact, the answer to the above problem lies in environmental norms 
rather than customs duties, a solution that even Taiwan, which is far more 
pro-capitalist than India, is exploring. WTO allows a country to impose 
non-tariff barriers to trade if a country wants to protect public health 
or the environment but with the proviso that the rules must apply equally 
to foreign and domestic car-makers. Therefore, if the sale of vehicles 
with Euro II or III standards is permitted in India, only an imported 
second-hand vehicle meeting these standards can enter India. Why doesn't 
the minister ask the auto industry to take a proactive stand and accept 
Euro III standards by, say, 2002? They will keep out the foreign devil as 
well as help to clean India's urban air  faster.

Taiwan is not yet a member of WTO but is likely to become one soon. In 
order to prevent diesel pollution, the Taiwanese have currently banned the 
import of diesel cars. But trust the EU to insist that it will only 
support Taiwan's entry to WTO if it lifts this ban. So the Taiwanese 
Environment Protection Authority in a meeting with its auto manufacturers, 
all of whom import the engines, have agreed that they will protect the 
local industry as well as the country's urban air quality by implementing 
the strictest standards in the world outside California. The trouble is 
our politicians and bureaucrats will only pander to the inanities of the 
industry. 

- Anil Agarwal




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