Madrid was hailed as a public health beacon last November when it rolled out ambitious restrictions on the most polluting cars. Seven months and one election day later, a new conservative city council suspended enforcement of the clean air zone, a first step toward its possible demise.

    Mayor José Luis Martínez-Almeida made opposition to the zone a centrepiece of his election campaign, despite its success in improving air quality. A judge has now overruled the city’s decision to stop levying fines, ordering them reinstated. But with legal battles ahead, the zone’s future looks uncertain at best.

    Among other weaknesses, the measures cities must employ when left to tackle dirty air on their own are politically contentious, and therefore vulnerable. That’s because they inevitably put the costs of cleaning the air on to individual drivers—who must pay fees or buy better vehicles—rather than on to the car manufacturers whose cheating is the real cause of our toxic pollution.

    It’s not hard to imagine a similar reversal happening in London. The new ultra-low emission zone (Ulez) is likely to be a big issue in next year’s mayoral election. And if Sadiq Khan wins and extends it to the North and South Circular roads in 2021 as he intends, it is sure to spark intense opposition from the far larger number of motorists who will then be affected.

    It’s not that measures such as London’s Ulez are useless. Far from it. Local officials are using the levers that are available to them to safeguard residents’ health in the face of a serious threat. The zones do deliver some improvements to air quality, and the science tells us that means real health benefits—fewer heart attacks, strokes and premature births, less cancer, dementia and asthma. Fewer untimely deaths.

    But mayors and councilors can only do so much about a problem that is far bigger than any one city or town. They are acting because national governments—Britain’s and others across Europe—have failed to do so.

    Restrictions that keep highly polluting cars out of certain areas—city centres, “school streets”, even individual roads—are a response to the absence of a larger effort to properly enforce existing regulations and require auto companies to bring their vehicles into compliance. Wales has introduced special low speed limits to minimise pollution. We’re doing everything but insist that manufacturers clean up their cars.

答案精析：本题为推断题。根据题干中的auto companies可定位至原文最后一段。该段提到，限制高排量汽车进入某些地区，如市中心、“学校街道”，甚至个别道路，是针对两个问题的应对之策：政府没有加大力度切实执行现有法规、也没有要求汽车公司按规生产。最后一句是对上文中治理措施的总结：我们什么都做了，但就是没有坚持要求制造商制造低污染的汽车。由此可推断，政府应该强制要求汽车公司遵守其规定，故正确答案为B。

错项排除：关于汽车公司，最后一段主要讲了两件事，一是限制高污染汽车进入某些地区，二是政府未能坚持要求汽车制造商处理汽车污染问题，显然A、C项是针对汽车污染问题有可能采取的应对措施。但文章只是对此问题作客观描述，从最后一段无法明确得出汽车公司是否会提高低排放汽车的产量或改进汽车设计，故A、C选项属于主观臆测，可排除。最后一段中只说到现有法规执行不力，并没有提到公众监督，故D项排除。

长难句分析：Restrictions that keep highly polluting cars out of certain areas—city centres, “school streets”, even individual roads—are a response to the absence of a larger effort to properly enforce existing regulations and require auto companies to bring their vehicles into compliance.

本句的主干为Restrictions…are a response…，是主系表结构。that引导定语从句，修饰主语Restrictions。破折号中间的内容为插入语，对certain areas的范围进行具体的解释说明。to the absence of a larger effort为后置定语，修饰表语a response。后面的to properly…compliance作effort的后置定语。

句意为：对于政府没有加大力度切实执行现有法规、也没有要求汽车公司按规生产这两个问题，限制高污染汽车进入某些区域——如市中心、“学校街道”，甚至个别道路——是一种应对之策。