Used heavy duty vehicles major polluters, UN releases recommendation ahead of environment assembly

The increasing use of heavy-duty vehicles (HDV) has considerably escalated pollution levels, finds a new study. The study report was launched by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and Climate and Clean Air Coalition at a press conference held at the UNEP headquarters in Nairobi on February 22, 2024.

The document Used Heavy Duty Vehicles and the Environment-A Global Overview of Used Heavy-Duty Vehicles: Flow, Scale and Regulation was released ahead of the sixth session of United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA-6).

“Though HDV exports represent only 3.6 per cent of the global automotive trade’s total value, ever since 2000, the carbon dioxide emissions associated with them have seen an increase by more than 30 per cent,” the organisations noted. 

Vehicles weighing above 3.5 tonnes are categorised as HDVs, which include various kinds of trucks and buses.

Trucks contributed to 80 per cent of the emissions surge, the findings showed. Overall, HDVs account for over 40 per cent of on-road nitrogen oxides (NOx) emissions, over 60 per cent of on-road particulate matter (PM 2.5) and over 20 per cent of the black carbon emissions.

The number of HDVs plying on roads is projected to significantly grow with an increase in economic activities and the need to move people and goods, the authors estimated. This analysis was done based on past trends that showed the sale of trucks and buses worldwide doubled in the 15 years from 2000-2015. 

The flow and scale of the global used HDVs was analysed for this study. “Several developing countries depend on imports of used HDVs in order to grow their fleet,” the authors noted.

The report found regulation and enforcement on the quality of imported used HDVs to be between low and non-existent. This, it said, is found to further amplify their impacts, particularly for old, polluting and unsafe used HDVs. 

“Trucks and buses contribute to economic growth just about anywhere in the world. But ambitious regulations are needed to curb their emissions causing major environment and health impacts. Introduction of cleaner bus technologies can be a major driver for the global revolution to low and, ultimately, zero emissions transport,” Rob de Jong, head of UNEP’s sustainable mobility unit and one of the authors of the report, said in a press statement. 

The report further found that in 2015, a total of 6.3 million new and used HDVs were sold worldwide. Among these, 3.4 million units were found to be newly manufactured. This figure makes the number of used HDVs comprise about half of the sales in total.

Strikingly, it also found that Japan, the European Union and the Republic of Korea together made up for nearly 60 per cent of the entire export market share of new and used HDVs. These countries exported nearly 2.4 million units of used HDVs in the period from 2015-2020.  

The findings also reflected that a third of the total number of used HDVs globally is absorbed within the EU. “Meanwhile, 20 per cent of total used HDVs is exported to Africa, another 20 per cent to Asia-Pacific, and the remaining to other regions.”

To this day, no country has developed the minimum requirement for export of used HDVs, the authors of the report highlighted. It was stated that the report found regulations in more than half of used HDV importing countries to be weak or very weak. It also stated that enforcement in such countries were found inadequate. 

The report also exemplified the aforementioned finding and stated: While 25 African countries adopted standards on used HDVs towards air pollution control, climate mitigation and improved road safety, only four of these were found to have fully implemented these. Meanwhile, it added that only two countries included used vehicles in their national climate action plans.

The report stressed that importance of sharing responsibility of importing and exporting countries to ensure cleaner and safer used vehicles on the roads in developing countries. It raised the growing need for regional cooperation for introducing and enforcing minimum standards. 

These, it suggested, could be emission standards and age limits, raising public awareness and further research needs for environment and road safety benefits. It exemplified that with steps like adopting Euro VI equivalent vehicle emission standards and cleaner fuels, as many as 700 thousand premature deaths can be avoided by 2030. 

At present, 97 per cent of all newly registered trucks and 73 per cent of buses in the EU run on diesel, the researchers noted. Exemplifying this, the report recommended better regulations on used HDVs that can lead to greater uptake of advanced technologies in developing countries. This, it further suggested, can include electric buses and trucks.  

As raised in the presser, the report’s limitations are discrepancies in statistics as well as lack of publicly available data from the United States (that does not separate exports of new and used vehicles), and China, an emerging exporter.

“Countries putting up in place minimum regulations for imported used buses and trucks usually import better quality vehicles even when confronted with challenges with enforcement of regulations. In an ideal scenario, enforcement and monitoring of compliance of minimum adopted regulations is recommended,” the report concluded.

In the absence of regulations requiring exhaust aftertreatment technologies, HDV importers tended to give the least expensive vehicle emission control options, involving removal of such technologies, the analysis showed. 

Netherlands, the authors noted, removed catalytic converters in many vehicles before shipment to Africa. Because of their old age, they were also found to lack diesel particulate filters. 

The report covered 146 countries that import used vehicles across five regions: Africa, Asia-Pacific, Eastern Europe, the Caucasus and Central Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, and the Middle East. 

UNEA-6, to be held from February 26 to March 1, 2024 in Nairobi, will focus on how multilateralism can help tackle the triple planetary crisis of climate change, nature and biodiversity loss, and pollution and waste.