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2020-10-28
Europe is contributing to pollution in Africa by exporting millions of aging vehicles that can no longer meet emissions standards at home, according to a damning new report from the United Nations Environment Program.
The agency, which is responsible for coordinating the UN's environmental work and for helping developing nations with environmentally sound policies, claims the vehicles produce harmful particulate pollution that would not be tolerated in developed nations.
The report claims around 14 million old vehicles were exported from Europe, Japan, and the United States between 2015 and 2018, with four out of five of them ending up in poor nations and more than half of those finishing up on the streets of Africa.
Rob de Jong, one of the report's authors and head of the agency's sustainable mobility unit, said almost all of the cars that end up in Africa are not fully roadworthy and would fail Europe's Euro 4 auto emissions standard, which came into force in 2005 with the intention of reducing particulate matter in the air caused by auto emissions.
"What we can say is that, of those 14 million vehicles, up to around 80 percent are not roadworthy and don't meet… Euro 4," the BBC quoted him as saying. "That means that those vehicles emit 90 percent more emissions because they are not meeting this minimal standard."
The UN fears the cars are damaging the environment and contributing to global warming while also putting lives at risk because they are not safe to drive.
But the agency does not only blame the exporters and said tougher regulations should be in place in both selling nations and those importing the vehicles.
The New York Times said the report amounts to the most detailed analysis of the global trade in secondhand cars to date.
It noted that the trade has the potential to be beneficial, by ensuring older vehicles that are no longer desirable to buyers in wealthy nations have a second life as an affordable transportation option somewhere else. But it said new rules are needed to make sure those vehicles are fit for purpose and are not dangerous.
In addition, investigators in the Netherlands recently found that some vehicles destined for export are being stripped of important features such as anti-lock brakes, airbags, and catalytic converters before being loaded onto vessels and shipped out to nations including Kenya and Nigeria, where more than 90 percent of vehicles being bought today are pre-owned imports.
The problem is unlikely to improve without new legislation because the 1 billion vehicles on the road globally today is projected to double by 2050, with most of the growth expected in lower-income countries.
Transportation contributes around a quarter of humanity's carbon dioxide emissions, which cause global warming.
In addition, vehicle emissions are thought to be responsible for around 3 million deaths worldwide each year.
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