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The steady growth in freight transport by truck presents a challenge to efforts at reducing hazardous air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions. Though most countries have fuel economy standards for passenger vehicles, as of 2011 only Japan and the United States have set efficiency and GHG emission standards for heavy-duty vehicles.
Most heavy-duty vehicles are powered by diesel engines that, without pollution controls, can emit high levels of other pollutants that contribute to global warming and local air pollution. For example, uncontrolled diesel vehicles produce high levels of particulate matter, a fraction of which has a warming effect, and nitrogen oxides, which are an ingredient of ozone (also known as smog), an important greenhouse gas. These pollutants are associated with bronchitis, asthma, and other lung diseases, and are responsible for millions of premature deaths worldwide. In 2013, the World Health Organization classified diesel exhaust as carcinogenic to humans, based on evidence of an increase in lung cancer after long-term exposure.
Europe, Japan, the United States and other developed nations have adopted heavy-duty vehicle emission control standards requiring the use of new technologies to reduce these pollutants almost to zero. With truck sales in China and India now higher than those in developed markets, it is critical that those and a number of other countries adopt similar standards.