Air in Baku will be dirty

Because of the dirty weather in Baku wealthy citizens prefer to buy homes outside the city. Accurate indicators of air pollution in Baku were given by Khazar University researchers who applied the European air quality index, which takes into account the content of ground-level ozone, nitrogen dioxide, heavy sedimentary materials and sulfur dioxide in the air. Index values ​​range from very good to very bad.

Clean air was detected in the village of Buzovna and Mardakan in the north of the Absheron Peninsula. Index value varies between four and five.

One million out of 200 thousand per 10 million population. In 1990 there were only 22 thousand of them, - specialists of the Khazar University specialize.

The Minister of Ecology and Natural Resources recently recalled the ancient truth about the need to plant thousands of trees and preserve the existing ones, while regularly in the press they report on another fact of illegal cutting of trees in Baku.

The road police and the executive power of Baku talk a lot about the importance of the drivers refusing cars with traditional engines and transplanting on bicycles, but so far in Baku there are no bicycle lanes on the roads. It is safe to ride bicycles only in parks and on the boulevard.

"The delivery of hybrid cars to Azerbaijan is stimulated. For electric vehicles, 15% VAT is applied," said the Minister of Ecology and Nature.

However, there are very few hybrid and electric cars in Baku; and there are not such cars in other cities and villages of the country. In the whole country there are much less than in Georgia, say tourists visiting the neighboring state. The traffic police of Azerbaijan has no statistical data.

The reason for small number of ecologically clean cars is that there is not a special infrastructure for the exploitation of such vehicles in the country. Special filling stations for such transport means have been created only near the H. Aliyev Center, and on the two filling stations of SOCAR Petroleum on the H. Aliyev Avenue. No more than ten cars charge their electric batteries during a month. "Not too high. The service is free. If a Tesla electric car from a 220-volt network is charged during 12 hours, our Spain-made "super charge" can charge a car in 15 minutes," said Uzeir Habibbeyli, a representative of SOCAR Petroleum. His words about the duration of the charging process and the absence of such stations in Baku and outside the capital, explains the low popularity of electric vehicles in Azerbaijan. In this aspect, there is doubt about the demand for hybrid cars of the Chinese model, which the director of the car assembly plant in Nakhchivan promises to produce.

In Soviet society was developed a network of public electric transport. From the end of the USSR, trolleybuses and trams in Baku were liquidated. Where are the rails, who sold the mechanisms, wires? Who got the benefit from the fact that people breathe exhaust fumes? This year, for the first time, several electric buses have been brought to Belarus from Ganja but they did not appear in the streets. The automobile plant in Ganja plans to produce electric buses of the Minsk model.

Traffic police did not fulfill promises to introduce measures leading to clean air in Baku. Before the holidays, it is reported that cars from the provinces are prohibited from entering the capital during the day, but it is clear from the registration numbers of cars that this discriminatory method is not being implemented. The usual ban in the cities of Europe on even days to operate vehicles with odd registration numbers, and on odd days, even vehicles with even numbers has not been implemented. This prohibitive measure can halve the number of cars in the city.

The buses that are well-established in Moscow and Istanbul, moving along the lines forbidden for other cars, are also not being introduced. Car owners may transfer to such buses, as driving along dedicated lines allows buses to move quickly and without standing in traffic jams.

The production of electricity from natural and clean sources also does not allow to reach the European standards. In January-July 2018, 14.1 million kilowatt-hours of electricity were produced by the wind power generation facilities in Azerbaijan, and 23.4 million kilowatt hours of electricity were generated for solar power generation, the State Statistics Committee reported.