Kathmandu– India-based think tank Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), in a new global study ‘Clunkered: Combating Dumping of Used Vehicles — A roadmap for Africa and South Asia’, has lifted the lid on the dark underbelly of a large-scale global trade in old and used vehicles from high income to low and middle income countries of Africa and South Asia.
CSE in a press release said that it is causing massive environmental dumping and toxic pollution. “Every year, out of the staggering global vehicle stock of two billion, more than 40 million vehicles approached-of-life – become old and decrepit,” CSE said in a press statement. But instead of being scrapped within domestic markets, a large number of these are sold in low and middle income countries that do not have the capacity to manage their polluting emissions.
“Cheaper price, weak environmental regulations in poorer economies, lure of a rich variety of vehicle models and stronger emissions regulations in high income exporting countries are inciting this unregulated global trade in clunkers (as these old vehicles are called). In high income exporting countries it is more lucrative and cost-effective to export used vehicles than scrap them,” says AnumitaRoychowdhury, Executive Director, Research and Advocacy, CSE. “If this continues unchecked,without the exporting countries sharing the responsibility of addressing this problem, the poorer countries will not be able to meet their clean air and climate mitigation goals,” she adds.
