Beijing, in an attempt to reduce the amount of pollution in the air, has come up with a new plan to reduce the number of conventional cars on the road and to add more hybrid and electric vehicles. The local government has said that they will reduce the number of license plates it issues over the next four years by 40 percent, to 150,000 a year by 2017. They will also slowly increase the number of plates reserved for electric and hybrid vehicles to 40 percent of the total by the end of four years.
Chinese officials have tried other tactics to improve the air in Beijing in the past. During the 2008 Olympics, all factories around the city were shut down and in October, local authorities said they would ban half the city's cars when serious pollution was expected.
While this attempt is noble and should help limit future pollution, because Beijing's air has been bad for so long, this will not be enough to fix the pollution problem entirely. "The city is surrounded by smoke-belching factories, its streets are choked by a growing number of cars and it sits on a plain that is surrounded by hills that trap pollution." To reduce the smog that blankets the city, China will need to restrict emissions of nitrogen oxides, particulate matter and other airborne pollutants from surrounding areas, and it will have to cut down on outdoor fires used for cooking. Most importantly, China will have to rethink how it powers itself because zero-emisson vehicles need electricity and most of China's power is generated by burning coal.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/16/opinion/beijings-car-problem.html?ref=airpollution
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