Imported employed vehicles worsening air pollution in developing countries: UNEP
The export of used vehicles from the industrialized north to producing countries worsened polluting of the environment while undermining action on climate change, says a written report that premiered by the UN Environment Program (UNEP) in Nairobi on Monday.
In line with the report titled "Used Vehicles and the Environment: A Global Summary of Employed Light-Duty Vehicles: Move, Scale and Regulation," between 2015 and 2018, some 14 million older, low-quality vehicles were exported from European countries, Japan, and the united states.
Africa accounted for 40 percent of imports.
Experts say that up to 80% failed to meet the minimum amount of safety and environmental standards in exporting countries.
As well as triggering accidents, these cars make air pollution worse and contribute heavily to climate transformation.
Lots of vehicles are also tampered with to eliminate valuable parts.
"Clearing up the global vehicle fleet is important to meet the global and local quality of air and climate targets," explained Inger Andersen, the UNEP executive director.
"Through the years, developed countries possess increasingly exported their used vehicles to growing countries, because this largely occurs unregulated, this has become the export of polluting vehicles," she added.
The brand new UNEP report that was predicated on analysis of 146 countries finds that nearly two-thirds had weak regulatory tools that compromised the quality and safety of used vehicles imported from Japan, Europe, and America, reports Xinhua.
"Developed countries must stop exporting vehicles that fail environment and safety inspections and so are no longer considered roadworthy within their personal countries while importing countries should introduce more robust quality standards," said Andersen.
The UNEP report says that lack of regional and global conventions to modify trade and flow of used vehicles was to blame for the declining quality of air in the global south alongside a spike in road accidents.
"Regulation is important to guarantee the quality of the vehicles and reduce urban polluting of the environment and global climate emissions," says the report.
It proposes outright bans, fiscal incentives, labeling, and awareness creation in order to reduce the importation of second-side vehicles by low and middle-income countries.
"Fiscal instruments could be an effective method to regulate the import of employed vehicles," says the record.
"Examples happen to be age-based taxation, progressive excise tax based on carbon emissions, or perhaps engine size, and exemptions for particular vehicles, such as for example hybrid electric and electric vehicles," it adds.
The report says that research coupled with the harmonization of laws and policies is paramount to make sure that only second-palm vehicles that meet safety standards are exported to growing countries.
