Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
Fig. 6.1
Emissions and urban density. (Sources: Compiled from data in Kenworthy
2003
; World
Bank 2012; TE
2012
)
simplest is by
restricting car supply
, such as discouraging ownership and use, for
example by increasing taxes on new cars to reduce car sales, a policy adopted in
Denmark, or as in the old USSR by keeping car production at low levels and with
high prices. However, such policies are difficult to apply in democratic countries,
especially given the fact that automobile production is a major economic driver. A
variation on this restrictive approach was implemented in Mexico City in the 1990s,
but it applied only to old cars. Since the metropolitan area was plagued with high
pollution levels because the air is thinner at the altitude of over 2000 m, policies
were implemented to get rid of the old, polluting cars, by offering incentives to take
these vehicles off the road. The result was that the newer and more fuel-efficient ve-
hicles with better emission standards became dominant in the vehicle fleets, which
has lowered pollution levels, although the effects have been reduced by the increas-
ing growth of the metropolitan area and numbers of cars. Seoul, a member of the
C40 group of megacities concerned with climate change, has
car-free days
which it
claims has reduced greenhouse gases by 10 % (C40
2014
). Another form of supply
restriction is to reduce the number of parking spaces for cars in central city areas
or make them more expensive, which means motorists are less able to use cars if
they cannot park the vehicles. Copenhagen adopted the former policy in the 1980s,
restricting its parking spaces by a set amount each year.
A second approach involves
car licensing
, which has been adopted in Beijing,
primarily to curb the extreme levels of air pollution. In 2008 an additional digit was
added to licence plates, which indicated the day of the week when the car could
not
be used in main urban area. In 2011 a more direct licensing system was introduced,
