JAPAN: Stepping Up Efforts to Curb Air Pollution

By Suvendrini Kakuchi Reprint | | Print |

Suvendrini Kakuchi

TOKYO, Sep 30 1995 (IPS) - Japan hopes to bring down air pollution levels by tightening controls on vehicle emissions, but the auto industry is worried stricter standards would mean more costs for car companies, still reeling from the effects of recession.

Masaru Fujita, an Environment Agency official, says the government is alarmed at the worsening air pollution in Japan and plans to impose more stringent controls by April next year.

They will be followed by another set of restrictions in 1998, aimed at bringing down current pollution levels by 60 to 64 percent.

Auto industry sources say the 1998 targets are the most stringent in the industrialised world and will damage the financial health of recession-hit car firms.

The government’s plans to revise laws next year, aimed primarily at making imported gasoline lead-free, have already forced car manufacturers to develop new filters that will retain 80 percent of harmful exhaust soot particles.

Japan was among the more than 100 countries that signed a treaty at the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro to cut greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by the year 2000.

But government officials here admit Japan is likely to fall short of that target. At the rate the country is going, they say, pollution levels could even increase by about three percent.

Japan, which had been a world leader in limiting exhaust emissions from vehicles in the 1970s, is now lagging behind other industrialised countries.

The main reason for this, says Fujita, is the increase in the number of vehicles on Japanese roads, mostly diesel trucks. Japan now has more than 16 million vehicles, 10 percent more than the figure five years ago.

Since 1970 Japan has adopted a number of measures to limit vehicle emissions, which have increased with the expansion of the economy.

Last year the government announced controls on the worst polluters, diesel trucks and buses, which belch out more than 70 percent of air pollutants in Japan.

It also imposed stringent restrictions on soot for the first time in Japan. Under the guidelines, particles in exhaust must not exceed 0.2-0.7 g per kilometre.

Mitsubishi Motors Corp, a major producer of trucks, says it has been spending 200 million dollars a year on research to comply with the new requirements.