Rwanda urges Vehicle owners to do their utmost to prevent air pollution

 

By Ange de la Victoire DUSABEMUNGU

The Rwanda Environment Management Authority is conducting a series of activities aimed to raise awareness on Air pollution control.

These activities are in line with the celebration of the 2021 International Day of Clean Air for Blue skies with the theme “Healthy Air, Healthy Planet” to underline the link between healthy air and a healthy planet

Following the international community’s increasing interest in clean air, and emphasizing the need to make further efforts to improve air quality to protect human health, the United Nations General Assembly has designated 7 September as the International Day of Clean Air for blue skies.

On Sunday, September 5, 2021, at the launch of the Air Pollution Control Campaign, the Rwanda Environment Management Authority in collaboration with the National Police inspected various Vehicles to assess the level of pollution.

In accordance with the World Health Organization’s guidelines, the air quality in Rwanda is considered unsafe. The most recent data indicates the country’s annual mean concentration of PM2.5 is 43 µg/m3 which exceeds the recommended maximum of 10 µg/m3.

Commenting on the campaign, the Director General of Rwanda Environment Management Authority Mrs Juliet Kabera said that drivers have shown that they really want to know how to behave by preventing their vehicles from contributing to Air pollution.

“Together with the national police through the Traffic Unit we are checking vehicle pollution. Among the vehicles we inspected, we found that there are some with air pollution problems. However, owners have shown us that they really want to know why and what they can do to prevent air pollution,” she said.

“We are increasing the awareness, we are now going to put in the effort to explain them so that they know the consequences and thus take part in the fight against it” Mrs. Kabera revealed

She noted that “so far, the Transport sector is the first pollutant of the air in Rwanda, followed by the cooking sector where many people rely on firewood.”

In the meantime, there is currently no law in Rwanda that punishes drivers whose vehicles are polluting the Air.

Of course, Punishment is not the first priority but the focus is on a campaign to address the issue in a sustainable way.

Mrs. Kabera told the media that when a vehicle test shows that it is polluting the Air the owner is advised to go and do vehicle maintenance while at the same time instructed on other alternatives to meet the quality standard which is less likely to pollute the Air.

 “We urge Vehicle owners to take care of their vehicles,” Mrs. Kabera said. “We all know that a car with a technical problem has to go to the garage to fix it, so that the vehicle meets quality standards.” She added that Vehicle owners should know that avoiding polluting Air is to protect lives and to avoid losses.

“When a car has problems. It uses too much fuel and this is a loss, also human life is at risk because the pollution affects the respiratory system and can lead to a variety of respiratory illnesses” Mrs. Kabera explains.

SP David Kalimba, the Director of Operations in the Traffic police also noted that “for those vehicles that pollute the Air, we advise the drivers to take them to the Vehicle Inspection Center, they examine it and advise owners on what to do. After that, the owner, once aware of the problem , takes it to the garage for maintenance to keep the vehicle from polluting the air. ”

SP Kalimba says that although there are no penalties, once traffic police finds that a vehicle emits pollution, the owner’s traffic documents are confiscated until the vehicle is back to the required standard after the pollution issue is resolved.

With increasing demand for travel, the number of vehicles in Rwanda has increased dramatically over the past decade.

Experts in Environmental protection find that to address the problem of Vehicles polluting the atmosphere, there is a need to change the type of fuel-powered vehicles and adopt a system that uses electric vehicles.

In the short term, Rwanda aims to reduce emissions by 38 per cent by 2030 with electric vehicles estimated to represent 9 per cent of potential energy-related emissions mitigated under the country’s ten-year climate action plan.

To reduce atmospheric pollution levels from the transport sector, the government has also committed to reducing the number of imported used cars by increasing taxes and plans the introduction of electric vehicles from 2020 onwards as part of its ‘e-mobility’ program.

Other key transport strategies include bus promotion as part of public transport development, replacement of minibuses by modern buses and the promotion of mass rapid transportation.

The Awareness campaign that Rwanda launched will also target other sectors including the Industrial Sector.