Opening Remarks by Bindu Lohani at Better Air Quality 2006
Dr. Bindu N. Lohani
Director General and Chief Compliance Officer
Regional and Sustainable Development Department
Asian Development Bank
Better Air Quality (BAQ) 2006
13 December 2006
Yogyakarta, Indonesia
Introduction
Honorable Ministers Rachmat Witoelar and Abu Rizal Bakrie, your Excellency Sultan Hamengku Buwono X, Honorable Mayor Dahlan Thaib, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen. It is with great pleasure that I join you here in beautiful Jogyakarta for this Better Air Quality 2006 gathering.
As you all know, we were originally looking forward to attending this meeting in September. But the forces of nature intervened, and Yogyakarta and the surrounding districts – especially Bantul – experienced the severe earthquake last May. Our sympathies, once again, go out to all those who suffered in that disaster.
Of course, we could have looked for alternative venues after a tragedy of that scale, but we all decided that by keeping the event in Yogyakarta, we are sending the message that this area is indeed recovering – supporting the spirit of ”Jogya Bangkit”!
Urban Issues and Air Quality Management in Asia
In these next few minutes, I would like to address some of the issues of concern for my own organization, ADB, regarding air quality and also to describe some of the things we are doing about them.
Now Asia has been and will be in the foreseeable future a driver for much of the world’s economic growth. The region’s annual rate of growth has been averaging more than 5%, compared with about 3% per year for the world as a whole.
Amid this economic expansion, some 44 million people are being added to our cities each year – that’s equivalent to 120,000 people every day! At this rate, there will be about 2 billion urban residents in Asia a decade from now.
To accommodate these people, a huge amount of cars, trucks, buses, motorcycles, and other motorized vehicles is being added to our streets, their number doubling every 5 to 7 years. The ramifications of this for air quality are daunting.
In tandem, there is Asia’s ever voracious demand for energy - for both industrial and domestic use. In particular, coal – now accounting for 41% of power production in the region – is expected to remain not only the largest but the fastest growing energy source in the near future. All this presents heavy air pollution risks in terms of suspended particulates and sulfur oxides, as well as carbon dioxide emissions.
The human health toll from this pollution is enormous, claiming more than 500,000 premature deaths annually in Asia, with the poor suffering the most.
Emissions from industrial, transport, biogenic and biomass burning sources also transport sulfur and nitrogen compounds across national boundaries. Thus the problem is no longer just national or even regional in scale but of international significance.
The region’s greenhouse gas emissions are set to become even larger than those of North America and Europe over the next few years. Do any of us really want to see Asia becoming a major driver of global climate change?
As an aside, I am pleased to say that ADB has ensured that all of the travel it supported for BAQ 2006 and the core functions of this meeting are carbon neutral, and we have encouraged all those of you who have financed your own participation here to offset the greenhouse gas emissions associated with your travel. If you need help organizing this, the CAI-Asia team will be happy to assist you.
So I have outlined some difficult challenges facing our region, but there are encouraging signs. We have seen improvements in Asia’s urban air quality in recent years, especially in the reduction of particulates and in lower sulfur dioxide emissions. However, we have seen only a modest decline in the levels of PM10 – the very small particulates that lodge in our lungs and present the most critical health risks. Average concentrations of PM10 in many Asian cities are still far in excess of the World Health Organization’s guideline (an annual average of 20 mg/m3 – with average PM10 concentrations of about 80 mg/m3 across the region). ADB’s Role for Air Quality Management In light of these issues, it is our collective responsibility to identify and follow a sustainable path to economic development. This must include new approaches to transport and mobility, stronger enforcement of air quality regulations coupled with innovative policies like emissions trading regimes, stricter fuel quality requirements, and tighter vehicle fuel efficiency standards, backed by strong political will to carry out the necessary reforms. ADB has been advocating such measures to improve air quality in the region for over a decade. Since ADB is a development organization, it provides individual developing member countries with technical assistance and investment projects. To address air quality, our recent interventions have included Beyond this support, ADB also is actively encouraging the incorporation of environmental considerations into investment plans for key sectors, such as energy, water, transport, and urban and rural development. There are many other activities I could mention – our Energy Efficiency Initiative to expand public and private sector investments in clean energy projects, a Carbon Market Initiative to help our developing member countries participate in the growing market for projects that result in greenhouse gas emission reductions. And, as you will learn later this week, we are promoting “Sustainable Urban Transport” to help cities shift away from reliance on motorized transport in favor of more energy efficient and cleaner public transport systems. The Clean Air Initiative for Asian Cities We are also particularly proud to have been a key player in CAI-Asia. This conference and many of the activities being reported upon here are testaments to the success of CAI-Asia’s networking efforts across Asia. ADB has hosted the CAI-Asia Secretariat in our Manila headquarters since its creation. Now we are pleased to be associated with the next logical move in its institutional development. The General Assembly of CAI-Asia yesterday approved its transformation into a legally established entity that should sustain its important work. We can look on this as a source of pride, as one would a child that has come of age after careful nurturing. We will, of course, continue to support CAI-Asia through this new phase in its development as it broadens its financial base and consolidates its networking, policy analysis and demonstration activities, and we trust that you will all share in provide such support. Conclusions Going back to our purpose for this week’s gathering, despite the gains achieved in urban air quality in Asia, our presence here is ample evidence of our collective desire to do more. Let’s use these next three days to take stock of what has been accomplished but also of the remaining needs. These include: When we gather again in two year’s time at the next BAQ, we should be focusing on what has been achieved by spreading successful approaches to deal with these challenges across the region. In other words, we want positive results. And as for the strong political will I mentioned as necessary, I believe that the first Governmental Meeting on Urban Air Quality in Asia to be held today and tomorrow should become an important driving force for change. I remain optimistic that – through our combined efforts – rapid progress can and will be achieved. I wish you all the very best for a successful meeting and for the achievement of the air quality improvement goals that mean so much to our collective health and well being across Asia. Thank you.
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