According to Forbes, in many Asian cities, a generation of children is growing up that rarely sees blue skies. It is one of the most pernicious threats to health now. Every year, 6.5 million die from diseases caused by indoor and outdoor air pollution, such as respiratory diseases and lung cancer. Strikingly, more than half of these deaths occur in Asian countries, mostly China and India. Korea is not immune to this trend. Cities everywhere have urged against the air pollution and make climate commitments rather than waiting for their national governments to take action. Beijing, which is notorious for its air pollution, is adopting vehicle emission standards that are stricter than the national ones. By 2020, the city plans to replace more than 70,000 gasoline and diesel taxis with electric vehicles and establish 435,000 charging stations in the area. German cities have adopted low-emission-zones (LEZ) which allow only vehicles that emit low levels of air pollutants to enter these designated areas. Vehicles are categorized into four mutually exclusive classes based on their emissions. Overall, 46 million German cars, buses and trucks are required to display a colored windshield sticker indicating the vehicle class. LEZ have significantly improved air quality in German cities as fine dust pollution on main streets decreased by nine percent on average. This result is promising because other measures to reduce air pollution, like building ring roads encircling a city or advertising public transport, had no significant positive effect. Studies estimate a net benefit of LEZ of about one billion dollar in Germany: while the health benefits are worth two billion dollars. Germany’s LEZ goes in compliance with EU law which requires a yearly average of 40 micrograms per cubic meter (µg/m3) and a daily average of 50 µg/m3 set for particulate matter (fine dust) smaller than 10 micrometers (PM10, particulate matter of 10 micro-millimeters) . The daily average may not be exceeded on more than 35 days per calendar year. This standard is stricter than the Korean standards on fine dust not exceeding 100 micrograms per cubic meter during a 24 hour average level, and not 50 µg in the case of ultrafine dust (PM2.5, particulate matter of 2.5 micro-millimeters). The effectiveness of LEZ depends on close cooperation between cities’ government and the Federal government. The German Federal Environmental Agency (Umweltbudesamt) complies the data reported by federal states and municipalities on their low emission zones. The individual municipalities are responsible for accuracy and up-to-datedness of data. In Korea, public opinion has been divided over the Seoul Metropolitan Government’s move to combat worsening fine dust pollution. All influential political figures seem to have a say in the matter on their own. It is time for the Korean people to ponder a harmonized way to deal with the matter so that our generation of children can have a decent chance to breathe clean air in our cities.
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