18 March 2004 12:16
Most of Moscow transport fails to meet European environment standards
Moscow, 18 March: Only 30 per cent of vehicles in Moscow meet European environment standards, a board meeting of the
city's department for the use of natural resources and protection of the environment has been told by department
head Leonid Bochin.
He said that, "of the capital's nearly 3m vehicles, only 30 per cent meet European standards". Every
year vehicles in Moscow produce more than 900,000 t of pollutants, or 83 per cent of the overall amount of atmospheric
emissions.
"The greening of Russia's transport," the department head believes, "is being held up primarily
by the lack of an integrated state policy, which in turn fails to give Russian manufacturers any incentive to take steps
towards upgrading their capital assets."
At present 1,400 vehicles in Moscow have been re-equipped to use gas fuel and standardized gas-filling stations are
being introduced.
The board also noted that in the last 12 years the number of vehicles in the capital has gone up more than 200 per
cent and the demand for motor fuel has reached 4m tonnes a year.
[ITAR-TASS news agency] |
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