Development & Aid, Environment, Tierramerica

Clean Air Plan for Santiago Fails

SANTIAGO, May 20 2006 (IPS) - According to business leaders, the year's first declaration of “pre-emergency” for air pollution meant 3.9 million dollars in losses. They urge President Bachelet to take action.

Santiago, Chile. - Photo Stock

Santiago, Chile. - Photo Stock

– The failure of the plan proposed in 2000 to clean up the air in the Chilean capital, home to five million people, is one of the biggest challenges facing new President Michelle Bachelet, who took office in March.

So far in 2006, Santiago has seen one day of environmental “pre-emergency” and several days with alerts issued in response to increased air pollution, which result in restrictions on vehicle circulation and shut-downs of boilers and other sources of emissions, and even bans on outdoor sports activities at schools.

The critical conditions brought by the climate phenomenon known as La Niña, with scant rain and low temperatures, brought to the fore the environmental vulnerability of the capital, as warned by at least two reports from international auditors, which pointed to shortfalls in many of the measures of the Atmospheric Decontamination and Prevention Plan (PPDA) pledged in 2000.

According to sources in the business sector, the pre-emergency declared on Friday, May 12, resulted in economic losses of 3.9 million dollars, due to the shutdown of 596 factories and 320,000 vehicles, including 120,000 cars with “green seals”, which run on unleaded gasoline.

Businesses complain “about the impact on their pockets, but undoubtedly the pre-emergency status means savings and benefits in health,” says Sonia Garrido, whose five-year-old son has respiratory problems and requires medical attention on days of higher air pollution.

Children and the elderly are most at risk in regards to poor air quality in Santiago. The capital's location in a broad valley surrounded by mountains and the lack of winds makes it one of the most polluted cities in Latin America, alongside Sao Paulo and Mexico City.

The environmental “pre-crisis” led Metropolitan Region Mayor Víctor Barrueto to convene a meeting of experts, who presented nine recommendations for a better registry of contaminants and more rigorous regulation of diesel fuel quality.

Barrueto himself announced six additional measures to bring the PPDA up to date, although the authorities had to acknowledge simultaneously a four-month delay in the Trans-Santiago Plan to streamline public transportation, which was to be fully implemented in October of this year, but is now put off until early 2007.

When it comes to who to blame, fingers are pointed at the previous administration, of President Ricardo Lagos (2000-2006), which is accused of failing to provide sufficient funding for the PPDA through the National Environmental Commission. But many of its measures were delayed in implementation by the archaic norms of the Comptroller General of the Republic.

The environmental crisis is consequence of “the lack of political will, given that many of the plan's measures were violated systematically by the government authorities themselves,” Luis Mariano Rendón, coordinator of the non-governmental organization Acción Ecológica, told Tierramérica.

Real estate speculation through converting farmland around Santiago into urban uses is, according to Rendón, an example of how the plan's measures have been violated through “an unnatural alliance between business and politics,” in which public functionaries encouraged private investment.

Acción Ecológica, with the support of the Furious Cyclist Movement, the Pro-Cyclist Network and others, convened a bicycle rally on Saturday, May 20, with brigades of cyclist pedalling uninterrupted for 12 hours around the presidential palace in the Plaza de la Constitución.

The rally, coming just before President Bachelet's first Message to the Nation, was organized to promote seven measures that the environmentalists say are urgent for reducing air pollution, and which especially aim to discourage the use of cars.

Their proposals come in addition to those of other citizen organizations, which call for improved efficiency in the transportation sector, auditing of industrial emissions with stricter rules, and higher standards for fuels, especially diesel, which has seen demand rise in recent years.

“It is citizen pressure that will change things. The plans to clean up the air have failed because they were made from a technical and bureaucratic perspective. But what is needed is a cultural change, in which we all have greater awareness that traveling today by car in Santiago is like smoking in a small room at home,” said Rendón.

 
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