Air Pollution

News: German limit

Germany’s city-state of Bremen announced last month that its 60 kilometres of motorway will have a blanket 120 km/h speed limit.

News: Drive Time Permits

An Irish academic has suggested that the way to solve congestion problems is to give drivers a set amount of driving time per year.

April 16, 2008 | Air Pollution | Cars | Pricing & Taxation | T&E Bulletin

News: Breakthrough on shipping fuels as IMO working group recommends sulphur cap

Significant progress has been made in the fight to reduce air pollution caused by ships, as the International Maritime Organisation looks set to impose caps on sulphur in shipping fuels later this year.

April 16, 2008 | Air Pollution | Fuels | Shipping | T&E Bulletin

News: Bad air quality

Air quality is getting worse in the EU, according to a report into concentrations of particulate matter, nitrogen dioxide and ozone, and local traffic is largely to blame. The report by the European Topic Centre on Air and Climate Change said legal limits were exceeded in a ‘considerably higher’ number of measured zones in 2005 than in 2001. PM was exceeded in 44% of the zones examined.

March 12, 2008 | Air Pollution | Pricing & Taxation | T&E Bulletin

News: Is shipping’s climate contribution underestimated?

A new report suggests shipping’s contribution to global warming may have been underestimated, while a coalition of environmental NGOs has said cleaning up shipping’s pollutant emissions would save ‘tens of thousands of premature deaths’.

March 12, 2008 | Air Pollution | Climate Change & Energy | Shipping | T&E Bulletin

News: Lifetime costs

The Commission’s long-awaited draft legislation on the rules for public authorities to buy road vehicles came out in December, and as expected they will require all authorities in the EU to consider the lifetime cost of pollution emissions and fuel consumption. The principle of bodies such as public transport authorities paying more for vehicles that are environmentally better than cheaper options has been accepted for some time, but the new legislation proposes a harmonised EU methodology for calculating the lifecycle costs of fuel, carbon dioxide, nitrogen oxides, hydrocarbons and particulate matter. One study predicts the proposed law could save up to 1.9 million tonnes of CO2 a year by 2017.

News: Low-emissions zones

London, which introduced a congestion charge in 2003, was due to begin charging a pollution fee on lorries, buses and coaches entering a ‘low emissions zone’ earlier this month.

February 6, 2008 | Euro Standards | Air Pollution | T&E Bulletin | Lorries & Road Freight

News: ‘Eco-Pass’ begins as Milan fights city pollution

Milan has become the latest European metropolis to introduce a city charge to reduce pollution and congestion levels, as the idea of ‘low emissions zones’ gains in popularity.

February 6, 2008 | Euro Standards | Air Pollution | T&E Bulletin | Cars

News: Baltic NOx

Countries bordering the Baltic Sea have called for tighter international regulations to prevent a predicted sharp increase in emissions of nitrogen oxides from ships in the Baltic. In a letter to the International Maritime Organisation, the Helsinki Commission, which groups countries with a Baltic coastline, said the IMO must be strict when it approves new emission limits for NOx and sulphur oxides in March.

February 6, 2008 | Air Pollution | Shipping | T&E Bulletin

News: New Euro-6 limits

The next round of pollution emissions limits for lorries and buses has been proposed by the Commission, and they will change from being a directive to a regulation.

February 6, 2008 | Air Pollution | Lorries & Road Freight | T&E Bulletin