So far, the signs are promising. The country's leaders and Beijing residents were thrilled with the results of the green drive, and ordinary folks have clamored to keep some measures in place. No one is happier about this than Wan Gang, the father of China's green-car R&D program and the minister of science and technology. "The Olympics taught us all a good lesson," he says. "Now people all over the country have an urgent desire for a better environment." Such enthusiasm is helping him and like-minded leaders push for the adoption of clean-energy car technologies and other antipollution measures.
Chief among them are restrictions on the use of Beijing's 3.5 million registered automobiles. In the past, leaders hesitated to place permanent limits on private-car traffic because the increasingly assertive middle class squawked at such constraints. But the Games have helped shift attitudes, and now the city is unveiling new rules for a six-month trial, inspired by—though not as drastic as—the cutbacks that took 2 million vehicles off roads for two months during the Olympics and Paralympics. Under the new regulations, a third of government cars have been mothballed. As of Oct. 11, a fifth of official and private vehicles are barred from driving on weekdays. Municipal authorities have also begun phasing out hundreds of thousands of vehicles that exceed emission standards by Oct. 2009, a year ahead of schedule.
And soon the government is slated to unveil 1,000 clean-energy public-transport vehicles in 10 Chinese cities. Beijing introduced 23 fuel-cell cars, 470 electric vehicles and 102 hybrids during the Games, and drivers loved them. Wan says local officials and citizens are warming to the green vehicles, too. "The Olympics has been a time for demonstrating new kinds of high technology," he says. "It'll be just like people who have an old TV at home—they'll change it when they see a new LCD screen."
This article appeared in the Newsweek International issue dated Oct. 20, 2008. To read the entire piece click here
