The Asian Development Bank (ADB) will spend US275 million to help China bus operators to shift their fleets to cleaner fuel in a bid to lower emissions in major cities.
Hong Kong’s new Chief Executive C Y Leung made a range of sweeping promises in his maiden policy address today aimed at tackling the city’s pressing environmental issues, including the city’s stifling air quality and absence of any real efforts towards nature conservation.
"For the well-being of future generations, the government and the community must commit to improving the environment. To tackle key issues such as waste management and air quality requires us to make choices," Leung said
Four years after it was supposed to have cleaned up its act ahead of the 2008 Olympics, Beijing has in recent days been experiencing some of the worst air pollution ever recorded.
Official measurements of PM2.5, the fine airborne particulates that pose the largest health risks, rose as high as 993 micrograms per cubic meter in the Chinese capital on Saturday, compared with World Health Organization guidelines of no more than 25. It was as high as 500 at 6am on Monday morning.
Maersk Line, the world’s biggest container-shipping company, has fired a warning shot across the bows of the Hong Kong Government, threatening to stop using cleaner fuel at port in Hong Kong next year if there is no regulation in place mandating that all shipping lines do the same.
The Danish shipping line has been a prominent supporter of the Fair Winds Charter, a voluntary scheme by the Hong Kong shipping industry to use fuel of 0.5 percent sulphur content or less “to the maximum extent possible” while at berth in Hong Kong from 1 January 2011 to 31 December 2012.
India's Comptroller and Auditor-General (CAG) has upheld findings that pollution from iron ore mining has contributed to the increase in incidence of tuberculosis and other respiratory diseases in the Bellary District in central Karnataka.
As the incidence of respiratory disease increases in the Philippines due to pollution, the head of an environmental group has advocated issuing gas masks free to students. Joey Papa, president of Bangon Kalikasan Movement, said employers should also provide them to their workers in urban areas.
From January 1, 2013 real-time air quality monitoring data has become available in 74 large cities in China according to the Ministry of Environmental Protection.
Beijing’s moves to rid its streets of emission-spewing clunkers is gaining steam. The city government, having already cleared over half a million aging vehicles, this week announced more incentives to encourage owners to trade up.
The Indian government has informed the Lok Sabha, the country’s lower house of parliament, that the Environment Pollution (Prevention and Control) Authority (EPCA) has called for a ban on all diesel cars in Delhi to prevent emission of high smoke particles.
Beijing has surpassed its goal of removing aging, heavy-polluting motor vehicles from the roads by about 29 percent, according to the city’s Municipal Environmental Protection Bureau.
Beijing’s municipal government has announced that it will take a certain percentage of official vehicles off the road during times of extreme pollution to lower exhaust emissions and reduce air contamination.
It is one of those embarrassing things that happen from time to time – finding one or two nose hairs poking out of your nose while you are in the company of others. There’s nothing you’d want more than to get your hands on a trimmer and remove it instantly.
If you are living in a choking city like Hong Kong, however, you’d be better off keeping your nose hairs and let them grow - they are your first line of defense against air pollution.
In a new wide-ranging plan to curb emissions, China yesterday announced that it will spend 350 billion yuan (USD56 billion) by 2015 to curb air pollution in major cities.
Delhi’s industries minister Haroon Yusuf on Monday said that the government is not interested in promoting industries that pose a threat to the city’s environment and its people, according to the Deccan Herald
The Vietnamese city of Da Nang was selected at last week’s 44th APEC energy meeting in Washington DC as the site of Low-Carbon Model Town Project, according to Pham Thanh Tung, the head of the Ministry of Industry and Trade's International Co-operation Department.
Chinese meteorologists have dismissed media reports that Beijing had been afflicted by a toxic fog last Friday and that the fog’s label, “radiation fog”, was misleading, the Global Times reported yesterday.
China’s National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) has released a new policy document detailing plans to encourage the transport sector to use liquefied natural gas (LNG) as cleaner-burning alternative to conventional oil-based fuels.
In spite of assurances by Chinese government officials in Ningbo City, Zhejiang province, that the planned expansion of a chemical plant will be cancelled, environmental protests have continued.
Finally, some data. A couple of weeks ago Civic Exchange and two Hong Kong universities released a report detailing the extent of emissions from ships in the Pearl River Delta region, and their public health impact.
It’s a groundbreaking study. Using 2008 data, researchers from HKUST did a ship emissions inventory of vessels activity across the PRD. They then calculated the dispersion of the pollutants, which showed that Shenzhen and Hong Kong have the most ship emissions, ahead of other coastal PRD regions such as Zhongshan and Dongguan, and outer PRD regions, like Foshan and Huizhou.
This report by the World Bank spells out what the world would be like if it warmed by 4 degrees Celsius, which is what scientists are nearly unanimously predicting by the end of the century, without serious policy changes.
Companies in Asia reveal expectations that regulations that could lead to rising costs for reporting and reducing GHG emissions will also be the main sources of climate-related business opportunities.
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