A Legislative Study On The Urban "Low Emission Zone" To Deal With The Motor Vehicle Exhaust Pollution

With the development of society and economy, China has entered a stage of rapid urbanization. While traffic promotes the economic growth and expands the scale of the modern city, in the meanwhile, it also causes congestion, energy consumption, environmental predicament, security and other problems of the city. Recently, in a lot of large and medium-sized cities of our country,"haze" weather occurs, and air quality declines seriously. One of the most important reasons which can account for the occurrence of the "haze" is the more and more serious motor vehicle exhaust pollution. The improvement of the relevant legal system is a fundamental approach to the prevention of urban vehicle exhaust pollution, but defects and insufficiencies still remain in the legal system of this respect in our country. Moreover, experience of major cities over the world shows that the establishment of urban "low emission zone" can effectively reduce vehicle exhaust pollution and mitigate regional traffic congestion. To perfect the legal system in our country, this paper, after analyzing the rules of the prevention of urban vehicle exhaust pollution and its limits and insufficiencies as well as the practice and the legal basis and grounds of the establishment of urban "low emission zone", intends to put forward legislative proposals on setting up the "low emission zone" to resolve the problem of urban vehicle exhaust pollution.This paper consists of four chapters, as follows:The first chapter presents the current situations of urban vehicle exhaust pollution and the relevant legislation, which shows that the motor vehicle exhaust pollution, by bringing great harm to the air quality in our city and causing serious damage to health of citizens, has become one of the primary problems in the prevention of environmental pollution and remains urgently to be settled, while the legal system of the prevention of motor vehicle exhaust pollution is imperfect and the deficiencies exist in the relative legislation.The second chapter presents the empirical analysis of establishing the urban "low emission zone" by introducing its implication, and international experience of some major cities, including the London area, representative cities of Italy and German, and Hong Kong area of China, among which focus is given on the experience of setting up the urban "low emission zone" in London area.The third chapter mainly carries on the theoretical analysis of establishing the urban "low emission zone". Firstly, this paper shows the externality of urban motor vehicle exhaust pollution. Secondly, from the perspective of environmental economics, this paper examines its rationality by analyzing its subject, function and implementation. Thirdly, the establishment of the urban "low emission zone" should be required of not only compliance with substantive law but also the legitimate legislative proceedings.The fourth chapter mainly propounds proposals on the establishment of the "low emission zone" in some cities to cope with vehicle exhaust pollution. On the basis of above analysis, this part puts forward two proposals for the relevant legislation in our country. On the one hand, we should set up the urban "low emission zone", involving the reasonable determination of geographical coverage, control time, control object, operation process, charging amount, and the reasonable distribution of the payment of fees. On the other hand, we should revise the relevant legal provisions and the legal system, including revise of "Atmospheric Pollution Prevention Act" and promulgation of the related laws and regulations, upgrade of emission standards, establishment of "motor vehicle emission pollution prevention regulations" and improvement of laws and regulations published by local authorities.