World’s cities grapple with smog head-ache

Press, 1 February 1988, Page 4

World’s cities grapple with smog head-ache

NZPA-Reuter Athens Like a modern plague, smog has settled on many of the world’s great cities. As roads become increasingly clogged with traffic, Governments are under pressure to find new ways to clean the air. Cities such as Tokyo and London have succeeded in checking air pollution, but the problem is worsening in places like Athens and Rome, according to a Reuter survey. Faced with a mounting public outcry, the Greek Government announced tough new anti-smog measures including the banning of all cars from a large area of the centre of Athens, special exhaust systems for buses, and halving the number of taxis in the city centre.

The drastic measures follow a statement by a doctors’ conference saying that six deaths daily in

Athens could be attributed to smog. Environmental groups and doctors attributed many of the 1000 deaths in a heatwave last July to pollution-related respiratory ailments.

Los Angeles, one of the first big cities to confront smog in the 19505, could take another 20 years to meet Government clean air guidelines, according to a city air quality official, Thomas Eichhorn.

“That is a very aggressive programme, even to shoot for 20 years,” he said.

In November a new programme was approved for Los Angeles companies to provide incentives for employees to form car pools, but environmental groups say the authorities are not moving fast enough to pass new laws or enforce existing ones.

The situation is even worse in Latin America where Mexico City and Sao Paulo have grown to monstrous proportions. Mexico City, with a population of 18 million, has 2.3 million cars circulating daily with no pollu-tion-reducing equipment. Ecology groups say pollution could result in thousands of deaths each year in Mexico City, but these estimates are denied by the Government. Among measures taken by the Government is the introduction of low-lead petrol and the changing of school opening times to avoid early morning hours when the smog is worst. Officials in Sao Paulo, the southern hemisphere’s biggest city with 16 million people, also cite the Brazilian city’s 2.5 million vehicles as the main source of smog.

The Brazilian Government has a 10-year pro-

gramme to make cars as pollution-free in 1997 as they are now in the United States and Japan. In Rome, intense traffic made the smog situation so bad last year that traffic police took to wearing face masks to protest against Government inertia in tackling the problem. Renato Zico, a lung specialist at Rome’s Regina Elena Hospital, said: “Studies show that the rate of respiratory diseases in Rome city centre is about three times that in the suburbs.”

The Italian Government promised an anti-pollution decree stipulating the maximum safe level for smog and noise in cities but the decree has yet to be passed. West Germany’s air pollution problems are generally not serious but the country suffers from the

cross-border drift of industrial emissions from East Germany and Czechoslovakia.

This (northern) autumn, the Bonn Government signed treaties with both its Communist Bloc neighbours spelling out measures to ease crossborder smog. As part of its anti-smog drive, Bonn also offers tax concessions to people driving cars with catalytic converters and lower sales tax on lead-free petrol. In Hungary, the attractions of Budapest are offset by the bitter taste left on the tongue by its polluted air.

“A one-hour stroll in a busy part of town will load the lungs with combustion products equal to those produced by smoking a packet of cigarettes,” the Hungarian news agency, MTI, reported.

Even in Switzerland, once synonymous with healthy clean air, the Government has adopted a new smog alarm system whereby citizens are warned whenever sulphur dioxide levels climb above 200. micrograms per cubic metre of air.

Switzerland has adopted the toughest car emission standards in Europe, has cut speed limits and boosted public transport subsidies in its fight to reduce air pollution. In Peking, foreign environmentalists compare air pollution with the London smog of 30 years ago, the main culprit being highsulphur coal burnt in stoves to heat the homes of millions of urban families.

China has not published figures for deaths linked to air pollution, but respiratory diseases are common and the distinctive

hacking coughs of Peking residents can be heard on every street corner in the morning rush-hour.

Surprisingly, the level of air pollution from Bangkok’s legendary traffic jams remains within acceptable limits set by international standards.

Sirithan Pairoj-Boriboo, director of the Thai National Environment Board (N.E.8.), said it was feared that smog from cars would become a problem in the future. An N.E.B. report said there was concern about high concentrations of carbon monoxide and lead in some parts of Bangkok.

Two of the world’s few smog bright spots are London and Tokyo, once among the most air polluted cities but which have successfully done away with most air-borne pollutants. In Tokyo, a vigorous

local administration over the years rid the city of most buses, enforced lead-free petrol in cars and taxis and extended an efficient metro system for commuters. London’s famous smoggy fogs began to fade after the Clean Air Act, 1956, which reduced sulphur dioxide levels by setting up smokeless zones where only specified fuels could be burned. “Coal fires were the main culprits,” a Department of Environment spokesman said. "As far as we’re concerned smog is a thing of the past.”

Mary Blake, of the Friends of the Earth environmental group, said: “The Clean Air Act was quite a success story. People in Europe are quite envious of us.” But Ms Blake says restrictions on car emissions need to be stronger.