Chinese mega-city Beijing is taking drastic measures to combat its toxic smog, banning particular cars from roads at peak pollution times.

From February 2017, the city will ban high-polluting cars – loosely defined as vehicles over 10 years old – from driving in the metropolitan area when orange or red pollution alerts are active.

China has adopted a series of measures over recent years to reduce the deadly smog which shrouds many of its northern cities during winter.

An environmental engineering expert who travelled to China recently and has written on its smog battle told The New Daily the measures were part of the government’s “war on pollution”.

“In 2013 and 2014 the central government really started to take it seriously, this war on pollution,” RMIT’s Dr Matthew Currell said.

“That has started to translate into a whole range of government policies like stricter limits on cars and industries and coal mines and coal burning.”

View a gallery of smog images from Beijing and Delhi below:

Beijing environment authority figures reported the banned cars only accounted for eight per cent of vehicles in the city, but are responsible for more than 30 per cent of smog-causing nitrogen oxide emissions.

Previous pollution laws (still in place) use license plate restrictions to limit cars on the road. Another new measure means only some schools would be automatically closed on orange and red alert days, instead of all.

The new measures came after Beijing experienced its first red alert pollution day in December 2015.

Meanwhile in Delhi, India, the city of more than 16.7 million people is recovering from a week-long thick smog cover in early November.

All schools in Delhi were closed, while “car-rationing” systems were put in place and all construction and demolition was halted. Local air quality forecaster Gufran Beig told the Hindustan Times the smog was so bad because winds had carried smoke from rural burning toward the city.

Photos from both cities’ smog bouts illustrated some remarkable scenes.

‘A huge way to go’

RMIT’s Dr Currell said while it would take a long time to see Beijing’s measures bear fruit, the city can take strength from Los Angeles’ pollution improvement from the 1970s and 1980s.

“It is not a problem you can fix overnight, there is still a huge way to go,” he said.

“I believe it can be fixed, in 2014 China accounted for more than half of the total coal consumption in the year. That is declining, but it takes a long time to decline.

“There is a big population and the whole world’s economy is dependent on China’s manufacturing.”

Dr Currell said he spent time with a non-government environmental organisation in China earlier this year which demonstrated to him that citizens were holding the government to account by individually monitoring air pollution levels.

“People understand what’s going on and can put pressure on their government and voice their concerns and have the data to support views on these issues,” he said.

“Many Chinese people are cautiously optimistic, not to say they aren’t concerned or angry about how it got to this stage.”