DENR seeks Euro four fuel by June 2015, phase out of 15-year-old vehicles
Environment Secretary Ramon Paje AFP FILE PHOTO
MANILA, Philippines – Criticized for lagging behind in adopting cleaner fuel standards, the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) has proposed advancing the implementation of the Euro four fuel standards for fresh passenger and light duty vehicles.
Environment Secretary Ramon Paje Jr. proposed to the Department of Energy the earlier implementation of the fresh emission thresholds, from the original January two thousand sixteen to June 2015, or six months ahead of schedule.
Paje stressed the “urgent need to improve Metro Manila’s air quality.”
He noted that vehicle emissions have been the main source of air pollution in the metropolis.
In 2010, the government mandated that all fresh passenger and light duty motor vehicles to be introduced in the market should conform with Euro four emission boundaries, subject to Euro four fuel availability, beginning Jan. 1, 2016.
Since 2008, the country has been following Euro two emission boundaries.
Euro two fuel types have a sulfur content of five hundred parts per million (ppm) compared to fifty ppm for Euro four fuels.
The sulfuric content of pollutants have been known to cause heart and lung diseases, increase cancer risk and bring about premature death, the DENR said.
Clean fuel advocates dreamed the fresh vehicle emission standards implemented earlier than 2016, telling that it would take about fifteen years to downright substitute all the vehicles presently in use with cleaner ones.
Around seventy to eighty percent of the air pollution in Metro Manila came from vehicle emissions, while the rest came from stationary sources such as industrial emissions and area sources like open searing, the DENR said.
As a measure of air pollution, the average recorded level of total suspended particulates (TSP) in Metro Manila last year was at one hundred eighteen micrograms per cubic meter, which was higher than the acceptable or national annual guideline value of ninety micrograms per cubic meter.
“Clearly, the key to improving Metro Manila’s air quality is by addressing the largest source of pollution, which is motor vehicles,” Paje said.
“We are therefore proposing an early implementation of the Euro four standards for automobile fuels and the scrapping of older high polluting vehicles,” he said.
The DENR said the automotive industry as well as owners of newer vehicles would not practice much difficulty with an earlier deadline since most of the newer vehicles were already compliant with or could be retrofitted to accept Euro four fuels.
The DENR also noted that independent fuel players have been selling Euro four compliant products.
Paje also urged the Department of Transportation and Communications (DOTC) to phase out 15-year-old vehicles, telling older vehicles have been known to consume more fuel and produce more emissions.
As a compromise to such phase-out, Paje suggested that older vehicles be barred from major thoroughfares already prone to powerful traffic.
“Heavier traffic means more idling time for vehicles on the road. This leads to more emissions, and older vehicles have more toxic emissions,” he said.
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