Business Standard
Press Trust of India | Beijing
October 20, 2015
China has deployed nearly 150 energy-efficient buses in climate-sensitive Tibet to “protect” the environment of the ‘roof of the world’.
The buses — 27 electric and 120 hybrid — have been put into service in the provincial capital Lhasa, the second most populous city on the Tibetan Plateau after Xining.
The new buses are said to generate 30 per cent less emissions than traditional buses.
Lhasa’s buses and cabs are scheduled to switch entirely to new energy by 2018, state-run Xinhua news agency reported.
Famed for its blue-sky, an explosive growth in the number of vehicles has aroused environmental concerns in Lhasa.
The Tibetan Plateau is increasingly experiencing the effects of climate change. According to experts, the region has witnessed an increase in temperature of approximately 0.3 degrees Celsius every 10 years.
In the past 50 years, the temperature has increased by 1.3 degrees Celsius, three times the global average, they say.
Today, Lhasa has more than 150,000 vehicles — one for six people — and about half of Tibet’s total, the report said.
China has more than 46,000 glaciers, mainly on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, about 14.5 per cent of the world’s total.
And the alarming rate of their retreat will inevitably lead to ecological and environmental change, several experts have warned.
