A Guide to Emission Standards Around the World

Before interrogating the different standards from around the world, it’s worth knowing what car emissions really are. In short, emissions are the gases and compounds that come from car exhausts, each of which contributes to air pollution. Some of them also act as greenhouse gases, which have been proven to contribute to climate change. 

The gases and compounds include: 

1. Carbon Dioxide (CO2)
2. Carbon Monoxide (CO)
3. Nitrogen Oxides (NOx)
4. Sulphur Dioxide (SO2)
5. Particulate Matter (PM)
6. Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) 

The concept of emission standards is a relatively new concept in some parts of the world. Despite emission reductions being made in the US since the 1970s, the first emission laws were introduced in the EU and UK in just 1992. Since then, vehicle emission standards and regulations have become a much hotter topic in global summits, with many countries pledging to do their bit. 

However, it’s worth noting that enforcing these emission standards isn’t the kind of thing that can be done overnight, with all the cars that are already on the roads. When emission standards are drawn up, they’re essentially operational targets that manufacturers and sellers in the country will work toward reaching before a certain year. Credits are offered to manufacturers that achieve the standards, while penalties are imposed on those that don’t. 

It’s also worth noting that the largest car markets, namely the US, China, Japan, and the EU (including the UK) have all implemented a corporate average approach. This means that manufacturers can still produce cars that fall short of new standards, granted that they also produce cars that surpass the standard.

The US, being one of the largest contributors to global pollution, has been working to reduce emissions since 1970, starting with the Clean Air Act, which pledged to reduce new car emissions by 90% by 1975. While progress was made between this time and 1983, it wasn’t until the 1990 amendments that it started to actively target more specific aspects of pollution. 

Today, the primary focuses of US emission standards are fuel efficiency and the reduction of greenhouse gases. One of their main goals for 2025 is to reduce the CO2 ratio to 93 grams for every kilometer traveled, down from 121g/km.

In the EU and UK, the first strict emission laws only came to be in 1992, and since then there have been five notable changes to the European standard. These steps in the standard are known as Euro 1-6, with Euro 1 introduced in 1992 and Euro 6 implemented in 2015. The European standards have become something of a global marker, with Euro 3 being considered a baseline level of regulations for much of the developed world. 

Air quality standards have been a major focus of EU and UK standards, with the allowable levels of emission being reduced to almost a third of themselves between 1992 and 2015. In the UK specifically, combustion engines in new cars will be banned by 2030, with certain hybrids allowed until 2035.

The Japanese government has been implementing vehicle emission standards since the 1980s, despite their first forays into regulation being considered fairly relaxed. The standards that Japan set on diesel combustion engines in 2005 were briefly the strictest in the world, but in the present day, the standard is closer to the US standards of 2010 or the Euro 5 standards.

China is the largest manufacturer of goods in the world, so it only makes sense that they’re also the largest maker of cars. Because of this, it’s become a major global concern that they set some fairly strict regulations, which they have been doing since 2000. In 2023, they’re aiming to implement China 6b standards, which will be one of the most stringent policies in the world, comparable to if not surpassing Euro 6.

It’s clear that the largest manufacturing countries in the world are trying to do their part, but the question of whether it’s happening quickly enough, or whether it’s too little too late still hangs over the heads of the global automotive community.