Introduction
Standards on carbon emissions are regulations that create specific cut-offs for the number of gaseous pollutants that can be released into the environment. Most of the practices employed by different countries focus on controlling the pollutants produced by automobiles, power plants, industries, and small equipment, for example, generators. Apart from policy measures set in place to control carbon emissions, technological initiatives are also used to achieve the same (Lomborg 2010).
United States regulations on carbon emissions
The Environmental Protection Agency is the one that regulates carbon emissions in the United States. Mercedes is one of the major automobile companies with a great share of the automobile market. The regulatory measures put in place regarding carbon emissions by automobiles have largely affected it. The current administration has adopted some parts of the Kyoto protocol to regulate these emissions (Bishop 2008).
This has occurred at the state level, local, and regional governments. The regulations in America consist of two groups: near term; and long term measures. Near term, measures apply in the residential and commercial sectors, the industrial sector, energy supply sector, agriculture, transport, forestry, and waste management. An example of a near term measures in the transport sector is the corporate average fuel economy program (CAFE). The new regulation in this program consists of varying fuel economy standards that correlate to the size of a vehicle (Honey & Barry 2000).
EU regulations on carbon emissions
The sets of laws that are enforced in the EU are unique to it. The standards put in place currently apply to barges, trains, and all motor vehicles. No standards existed before for carbon emissions, but there arose a push to introduce mandatory standards to replace the voluntary initiatives by motor companies. The EU is planning to introduce Euro 5 in 2012 to regulate carbon emissions from cars (Sollish & Semanik 2011).
China regulations on carbon emissions
China’s State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA) is the regulatory body that oversees carbon emission. On the 1st of July 2007, SEPA brought into effect the National standard III. This has similarities to the EURO III standards and is stricter than the previous one. At the start of 2008, Beijing became the first city to implement the EURO IV standard (Price et al. 2008).
India regulations on carbon emissions
From the year 2000, India put in place the European emission and fuel regulation which applied to heavy dc, and four-wheeled light-duty vehicles. Two and three-wheeled vehicles are still under India’s emission regulation. New laws require yearly renewal of certificates for every car in a bid to regulate carbon emissions. In the year 2010, Bharat stage III Emission standards were implemented. They applied to 4 wheelers in the whole country. Bharat stage IV only applies to large cities (Peter et al. 2007).
Third world countries regulations on carbon emissions
Many of the developing countries are unable to fully regulate carbon emissions. Few third world countries have implemented technological measures to curb carbon emissions in their country. Most of these countries are signatories to the Kyoto protocol. Countries that are part of the treaty use flexible mechanisms like joint implementation, clean development mechanism, and emission trading. These are some of the current mechanisms employed by third world countries to cap on carbon emissions (Nancy 2007).
References
Bishop, A 2008, How to reduce your carbon footprint, Crabtree Pub, St. Catharines.
Honey, M & Barry, T 2000, Global focus: U.S. foreign policy at the turn of the millennium, St. Martin’s Press, New York.
Lomborg, B 2010, Smart solutions to climate change: comparing costs and benefits, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Nancy, TR 2007, Managing the next wave of globalization, IBRD, Washington, DC.
Peter, GP, Weber, CL, Guan, D & Hubacek, K 2007, “India’s Growing CO2Emissions: A Race between Increasing Consumption and Efficiency Gains”, Wiley, New Jersey.
Price, L, Wang, X & Yun, J 2008, Reducing Energy Consumption in the 1000 Larges Industrial Enterprises in China, Lawrence Berkeley, North Carolina.
Sollish, F & Semanik, J 2011, Strategic global sourcing best practices, Wiley, New Jersey.