Clean Cars, Clean Fuel Needed to Offset Asia's Worsening Air Pollution, Workshop Told
MANILA, PHILIPPINES – New approaches are needed to satisfy the region's rapidly growing need for mobility while preserving the quality of life and protecting the environment, a senior ADB environmental official told a workshop today. Asia's vehicle fleet could mushroom by up to 10 times in size over the next few years, Nessim Ahmad, Director of ADB's Environment and Social Safeguards Division said. He was speaking at the opening of a workshop on Developing Fuel Quality Roadmaps for Conventional Fuels in Asia at ADB Headquarters. ADB and the Clean Air Initiative for Asian Cities (CAI-Asia) are hosting the two-day workshop, involving representatives from Asian governments, the oil industry, vehicle manufacturers, and development institutions. It will provide guidance in the development of roadmaps and action plans for cleaner gasoline and diesel cleaner vehicles. Another workshop hosted at ADB from Wednesday will take a broader look at the transport sector and discuss how upstream improvements to transport systems can contribute to a reduction in greenhouse gases as well as in more localized air pollutants. "The challenge is to ensure that new vehicles entering the fleet are as clean as possible," Mr. Nessim said, adding that cleaner cars require cleaner fuels. "Oil refiners need to modify their refineries and manufacturers of motor vehicles need to change engine specifications to ensure that air quality benefits materialize." He added that governments need to regulate fuel quality to guide the process based on sound science and in a predicable and phased manner. Regulations should be transparent and include monitoring mechanisms, he said, and involve all concerned sectors in their planning. "We recognize that not all countries in Asia can move at the same speed in introducing cleaner fuels," Mr. Ahmad said. "What is important though is that all countries begin to move in the right direction and that they articulate and announce their plans and objectives clearly. Once this starts to happen, we will be one big step closer to cleaner air in Asia." The World Health Organization estimates that about 470,000 people die prematurely in Asia each year due to exposure to air pollution. The rapidly growing transport sector is, in many cities, the most significant contributor to air pollution. ADB and the World Bank put the economic costs of air pollution into the hundreds of millions of dollars per city, reaching 1-2% of GDP at a national level. A paper synthesizing the importance of cleaner fuels for lower vehicle emissions, international experience in producing cleaner fuels, as well regulatory and fiscal instruments to promote the introduction of cleaner fuels will be presented and discussed in the workshop. The conclusions and recommendations contained in the final report will be presented during the first governmental meeting on urban air quality in Asia, which will be held in Yogyakarta 13-14 September 2006, in the context of the Better Air Quality 2006 workshop. See the CAI-Asia website for the program and background documents for the workshop. About ADB | 
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