Realities of car emissions and global warming

BY DOYIN ADEOYE

In Nigeria today,  road  transport  is  the  major  means  of  transportation  for  many, with thousands of cars being registered annually across various states in the country.

Over the past decades, fuel consumption has increased rapidly, basically because of the increasing amounts of vehicle use, as well as a major expansion of the transportation sector, which includes aircrafts, trains and ships.

However, with this increasing rate is an endangerment to the environment. Many vehicles on Nigerian roads contribute immensely to global warming emissions.

According to a 2012 World Health Organisation (WHO) report, about seven million people died as a result of exposure to air pollution.

Besides aiding global warming, car emissions are also responsible for many health hazards. According to experts, the carbon monoxide, hydrocarbon and Nitrogen oxide emitted from these automobiles for instance, causes skin cancer, cataract asthma and other respiratory diseases.

Although some states are already working on curbing this, a lot still needs to be done if Nigeria is to meet up with the Paris Agreement, which is to keep a global temperature rise at no more than 2 degrees Celsius, and to strive for a limit of 1.5 degrees Celsius if possible.

In Lagos for instance, the Lagos Metropolitan Area Transport Authority (LAMAT) in a bid to improve the quality of air, developed the Strategic Transport Master Plan (STMP), which targets the reduction of emissions from the transport sector by 45 per cent by 2030.

The National Environmental Standards and Regulations Enforcement Agency (NESREA) is also doing its best to control this menace, but a still needs to be done. One of its regulations is the National Environmental (Control of Vehicular Emissions from Petrol and Diesel Engines) Regulation, 2010, S. I. No. 20, which is aimed at controlling the country’s air quality.

It launched the Vehicular Emissions Testing (VET) programme last year, for effective monitoring and compliance of vehicular emission. The programme which is a mandatory yearly test of vehicles for toxic air emissions is also aimed at the installation of emission reduction technology in all vehicles plying Nigerian roads.

However, to further tackle the environmental impact of car emissions, stricter regulations need to be enforced on more usage of less fuel-consumption vehicles on the roads, because the less fuel burnt, the fewer emissions generated. When emissions go down, the pace of global warming also reduces.