Rising Number Of Vehicles Feeds Deadly Air Pollution In Asian Cities – UN-Backed Report
New York, Dec 13 2006 11:00AM
With 600,000 people in Asia dying prematurely from air pollution each year, the continent’s major cities face a key
challenge in reducing the daunting figure, according to a new United Nations-backed report: although vehicle emissions
are being reduced, the volume of vehicles is rising rapidly.
The study, Urban Air Pollution in Asia Cities, released ahead of the first governmental meeting on urban air quality
opening today in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, reports that while air quality has improved in some, pollution remains a threat
to health and quality of life in others. Asia’s growth in population, urbanization, motorization and energy consumption
remain major challenges.
One of its key findings is that concentrations of the fine particulate matter PM10, one of the main threats to health
and life is, “serious” in Beijing, Dhaka, Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, Jakarta, Kathmandu, Kolkata, New Delhi, and Shanghai.
“There is as strong an association between fine particulate matter and health issues in Asia as there is in Europe and
the United States, but in Asia the concentrations of particulates are much higher,” the study’s lead author Dieter
Schwela said.
But the report, focusing on 22 cities, also finds that Bangkok, Hong Kong, Seoul, Shanghai, Singapore, Taipei and Tokyo
have an “excellent” capacity to manage air quality. Beijing, Busan and New Delhi are rated as having “good” air quality
management capability. All these cities have achieved major reductions in key emissions but still need to address fine
particulate pollution from vehicle fumes.
Colombo, Ho Chi Minh City, Jakarta, Manila and Mumbai have “moderate” management capability. The report says these
cities have reduced sulphur dioxide emissions but have the challenge of addressing transport-related emissions. Dhaka,
Hanoi, Surabaya and Kathmandu have “limited” capability and need to improve air quality monitoring as well as achieve
further reductions in emissions.
Mr. Schwela said many Asian cities can learn from Hong Kong and Tokyo, which are further along the road to achieving
better air quality. The report is a collaborative effort led by the Stockholm Environment Institute and the Clean Air
Initiative for Asian Cities (CAI-Asia), together with the Korea Environment Institute and the UN Environment Programme
(UNEP).
In a related development, the first Asia-Pacific Ministers Conference on Housing and Human Settlements opened in New
Delhi today with a clarion call to reduce urban poverty and pollution. The four-day meeting, hosted by India with
UN-HABITAT, the UN agency that seeks to achieve sustainable development of human settlements, drew ministers and
representatives from more than 35 countries on its first day.
“You represent the world’s most populous region, the region with most of the world’s largest cities,” UN-HABITAT
Executive Director Anna Tibaijuka said in a message read for her. “You represent a part of the world that is the global
economic powerhouse of the future.
“You are gathered here to help devise a common new vision aimed at harnessing some of that great Asian know-how and
economic power to ensure that our growing cities of the future will not only be better managed, but manageable – or what
we in the United Nations call, sustainable,” she added.
Ends