China targets vehicle pollution with pledge to deliver 30 per cent more goods by rail by 2020
Rail’s share rose only 0.1 per cent last year as vehicles continued to dominate freight and represent the primary source of pollution in many cities
China will boost rail freight capacity by 2020 and raise the volume of goods delivered by trains by as much as 30 per cent, an environment ministry official said on Thursday, as the country grapples with rising vehicle pollution.
Ding Yan, vice-director of the vehicle emissions control centre at the Ministry of Ecology and Environment, said trucks produced 13 times more pollution per unit of cargo than trains.
“Motor vehicles have become the primary source of pollution in many large and medium-sized cities,” Ding said in comments published by the environment ministry on Thursday.
The total number of vehicles on China’s roads reached 310 million last year, with car ownership still rising by around 20 million per year. Cars are responsible for about 45 per cent of the particulate matter drifting over Beijing, Ding said.
While China has been making efforts to discourage road freight, particularly in the heavily polluted Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region in northern China, it still accounted for 76.8 per cent of total cargo deliveries in 2017.
