Dan Pauley

Comparative Politics
Research Paper

As China has continued to grow and develop as a country, so too has the carbon
emissions amount raised dramatically. Specifically, they have had a serious problem with their
automotive air pollution and have not taken the appropriate measure to halt it. That is why I
want to look at both China and Japan to figure out why Chinas amount of automotive air
pollution is greater than Japans. We know that Chinas automotive air pollution is higher than
Japans as it was reported by the World Bank that Chinas emissions were 8,286,892 in 2013
while Japans emissions were 1,170,715 in 2013. Japan has been able to keep their amount of
automotive pollution lower than China by using their experience, being extremely aware of the
problem, and introducing the most energy efficient technologies, policies, and standards. I
wanted to look at both Japan and China because they are two similar countries that reside near
each other. Now, Japan is definitely a more developed and industrialized country than China,
but there are other factors at play here. Another reason that I choose these two countries, is
since they are so close to each other China is hurting Japan too. They have recently blown some
of their smog into Japan and it is really starting to affect other nations. That is why I want to
explore these factors and conclude why Japan has been able to do a better job with their
automotive air pollution compared to China.
First, I wanted to talk about the history of automotive pollution in both countries and
how that has shaped their policies today. In the 1960s China started to vastly develop and
industrialize as a country. This has lead to China having much more pollution and carbon
emissions. China needed more resources and energy source because of their industrialization
and that has a great effect on them. Naturally, they used coal as it was a very cheap option and
something that is extremely easy to use. This has resulted in them providing tons of carbon
emissions into the environment and one of the main reasons why their carbon emissions input
went up so high during their development and industrialization. More specifically though, China
started to require more cars and as a result, their carbon emissions went up. In the 1980s
China was a heavy biking country and a lot of their citizens did not require the use of cars. That
has changed lately though as many more citizens are using cars. According to Asian Social
Science, car ownership has risen from 5.514 million in 1990 to 35.86 million in 2006. (Zhang,
2007) In 2010 it rose to 54.5 million and 2020 it is estimated to rise to 120 million (Zhang,
2007). This has obviously leaded to increase in fuel consumption and much more carbon
emissions. Automotive air pollution has become a big problem in China as according to Hong
Feng, former vice mayor of Beijing, twenty-two percent of their air pollution is the result of
automotive emissions. This is mainly the result of many more people starting to require cars
and becoming interested in purchasing them. This is significant because this has led to many
more cars being on the road than possible. As a result, this has led to a vast amount of smog
and greatly affecting the health of many China citizens. They have to take measures to stop
from being affected to the smog, such as stay indoors during certain times, or leaving school or
work early. As you can see, not only is this affecting the environment in China and globally, but
it is also affecting the productivity of China. Now that you have learned about the history of
automotive pollution in China and their current automotive air pollution concern, I will now
explain the history of Japans automotive air pollution.
While Japan did industrialize earlier than China, they experienced substantial air
pollution and carbon emission problems when they started to experience growth in the 1960s.
The lesson that China needs to realize from Japan is that they were able to maintain growth and
also environment friendly policies in order to curb the amount of emissions they put into the
environment, specifically emissions from their vehicles. Japan tried to make policies that would
limit the amount of emissions from vehicles, but they were not followed very closely and the
government did not put much emphasis on this. In the 1960s they were more interested in
making money and profits rather than trying to help the environment. Yet in 1970, they started
to act by enforcing 14 different laws that dropped their carbon emissions and more importantly
their automotive air pollution. Japan was still somewhat resistant to fully commit to becoming a
country where they were putting all of their emphasis on stopping their negative practices on
environmental issues. This changed in the 1990s when the Japanese government was able to
convince businesses that their real profits lay in fixing environmental problems. They were able
to offer incentives to their citizens for using environmentally friendly products, such as
instituting tax breaks to consumers who purchased cars that were more beneficial to the
environment. By installing policies that promoted environmental friendliness and getting
everyone committed to continuing this practice was a key for Japan cutting their air pollution,
especially their automotive air pollution. China can look at the example that Japan has outlined
and use it for becoming more environmental friendly.
Now that we have the learned the history behind automotive air pollution for both
China and Japan, it is important that we now look at how each country has dealt with the
industrialization of their country. Also, I will look at how they have enacted policies that can
better serve their country environmentally. First I will look at the practices of China and then I
will next look at the practices of Japan.
China was experiencing very high growth and more development of their country that
has also lead them to substantially increasing the amount of cars that they have sold. According
to IHS Automotive, in 2012 they sold 13 million cars, an increase of 7.6 cars and in 2013 they
are expected to continue increasing by 11 percent. The reason for such a big increase in the
amount of cars has been the government pushing growth and wanting to expand as a country.
This has led to many of the poorer parts of China purchasing cars as the government has been
raising their salary and therefore their disposable income in order to experience the amount of
growth that they want to achieve. China has recognized that they have too many cars on the
road and have adapted a license plate lottery system in order to limit car use. This has stopped
a fifth of cars from driving into the city on each weekday or else they would get fined. The
problem revolves around that this has done nothing to stop the purchasing of vehicles that will
continue to emit pollution into the air. The problem revolves around China making their cars so
affordable and encouraging every citizen to go out and purchase a car. They have become so
reliant on their cars and that is because their lack of public transportation. China makes it really
hard to get around and use the public transportation they provide. Specifically in Beijing, where
they have wide lanes and eight lines of traffic, which makes it hard to navigate around. In order
for citizens to go from place to place they have to ignore these constant threats of oncoming
traffic. This is entirely troublesome that it is this hard for citizens to get around in the city. Also,
the subway station has more passengers that they can handle and this makes walking to your
subway very long and troublesome. Another problem is the slow development of energy saving
and clean automobile technologies, according to the Asian Developmental Bank during their
analysis of China. Unlike Japan, where they have been a revolutionary leader in this category,
China has been slow to adjust to change and it is showing in how poor their automotive air
pollution and carbon emissions are in general. As you can see the rapid development has really
harmed the amount of carbon emissions and automotive air pollution in China. China has taken
measures to correct the problem, but they are really small in nature. Until they start to get
proactive about the problem they will continue to experience increasing automotive air
pollution in their country. This will only further lead to the environment becoming worse for
themselves and the world.
Japan on the other hand, has been able to greatly reduce the amount of automotive air
pollution in their country. The first way that they have been able to accomplish is this is by the
development of their country. Since they are fully developed country they have been able to
learn from their past mistakes and make the necessary corrections. They have found out what
policies work and which ones do not. They have much more experience for making policies and
standards related to automotive air pollution and supervising those policies in order to make
sure they are followed correctly. As a result, this has made Japans government managing style
very strong and is easily able to put out the correct policies regarding automotive air pollution.
Another way that they have limited the amount of automotive air pollution is having a higher
level of awareness. They realize that there are significant problems with the environment and
they are willing to do whatever it takes not only to improve the automotive air pollution in their
country, but also around the world. They realized that experiencing high growth was not the
only thing that they should be striving to achieve. Also, Japan has the most advanced
environmental technologies in the world and that has led to them being able to continue to
develop these technologies that will only allow them to continue growing in their
environmental friendliness. Japan is considered to be the most advanced in energy saving and
exhaust emission reduction by the whole world and what everyone strives to achieve. They
have made actual advancements in an area where most other countries are severely lacking.
Probably the most important aspect that Japan has been able to accomplish to reduce
automotive pollution though is by using energy saving automobiles. They have been a globally
leader in promoting the user of energy efficient cars and the results have shown. They are big
on the use of hybrid cars, where 10.1 of the cars their citizens own are hybrids according to
JATO dynamics. As you can see Japan has taken many measures in order to achieve their
success of limiting the amount of automotive pollution in their country. They have taken many
more measures than China has deployed and that just shows why their policies are working
more than Chinas.
Next, I want to address how each of Chinas and Japans government has had an effect
on reducing automotive air pollution. I will look at their government policies and determine
how that has directly affected each of their automotive air pollution.
One of the main problems for why Chinas automotive air pollution has been so poor for
a long duration of time has been because of Chinas reluctance to do anything about the
problem. The public has been outraged about the problem for many years about their poor air
quality and yet China had continued to ignore the outrage about the problem. It was only until
recently that China has vowed to something about the problem and that has only been because
the public outcry has been too much for them to sit there and do nothing about the problem.
China has seemed to be too committed to generating profits for their country and experiencing
growth. While it is understandable why they would be committed to these areas, they need to
realize that they have to focus on other areas of the environment in order to become a truly
great nation that they are striving to achieve. It should be recognized that the government has
started to finally take action and that is an important measure to recognize. They have vowed
to significant decrease their air pollution in order to improve the health of many of their
citizens. A big part of that problem is the automotive air pollution. One action that China has
taken to reduce automotive air pollution is they have started to limit the number of vehicles
purchased for private use. The new restrictions on ownership growth of cars could reduce the
amounts of cars purchased by about two percent or 400,000 according to Jun Ma, chief Chinese
economist for Deutsche Bank. The problem with this policy is that is not likely to have much of
an effect as they already have too many cars on the road. Cutting the amount of cars by
400,000 will not matter much to a country that has 5.18 million cars on the road (Xinhua news
agency) and has tripled their growth of car use. While this may be a small step to helping
reduce automotive air pollution, it will not be something that will help in the big scheme of
things.
Another policy that China has undertaken has been the phase out of commercial diesel
fuel. While this project would be at a major cost of 10 billion dollars, it would be very beneficial
to help reducing the amount of automotive air pollution in China. A lot of cars in China are
running on dirty diesel fuel, which emits particulate matter and nitrogen oxides that can cause
huge amounts of damage to peoples health. Switching to a low sulfur- Euro V fuel, will
dramatically reduce the emissions of vehicles into the environment. If this switch was made the
particulate matter would see its carbon emissions reduce by 80 percent and the nitrogen oxides
carbon emissions reduced by 30 percent. This is huge step in the right direction and hopefully
something that China will continue to explore in the future. Next, I will talk about Japans
government policies on automotive air pollution and how it is affecting the amount that they
have in their country.
Japans government has been able to use several policies and programs in order to limit
the amount of automotive air pollution that the country experiences. One of the key policies
that they have been able to use that has limited their automotive air pollution has been
reducing taxes on the price of green auto fuels. They have cut the tax bill by three percent of
the plant-origin gasoline additive ETBE. This has encouraged consumers to become more
environmental friendly and purchase cars that are better for the environment. The consumers
have responded to this policy and been more willing to purchase cars that are more
environmentally efficient. Japan has offered many energy efficient vehicles and has encouraged
their consumers to purchase these cars in order to help reduce the amount of carbon emissions
that are emitted into the environment. They have done this by also giving tax breaks to
consumers who purchase fuel-efficient vehicles. They have also been giving away rebates to
eco-friendly vehicles in order to support the purchase of these vehicles even more. By Japan
providing these incentives to their citizens they have found a way to reduce the amount of
automotive air pollution. They have also taken other measures that we have discussed earlier,
but these are some of the crucial government policies that have been undertaken in order to
achieve lower carbon emissions for Japan as a whole.
Therefore, I have explained why Chinas automotive air pollution is that much higher
than Japan. Japan has been able to keep their amount of automotive pollution lower than China
by using their experience, being extremely aware of the problem, and introducing the most
energy efficient technology, policies, and standards. Even though they are similar countries
Japan is continuing to strive to help better the environment while China is not putting that
much emphasis on the environment. Rather they are focusing on continuing to grow their
country. They are starting to take measures now as the issues have been too great to ignore.
China needs to find answers to their problems or otherwise their air pollution problem,
specifically automotive air pollution will be a serious issue for many more years to come.