Civil Society, Environment, Headlines, Latin America & the Caribbean

ENVIRONMENT-CHILE: Santiago Smog Taints Lagos’s Legacy

Gustavo González

SANTIAGO, Apr 4 2006 (IPS) - Leading Chilean environmentalists told IPS that the government of former president Ricardo Lagos had lied to the public and lacked the political will to effectively implement a plan to free Santiago from the smog that plagues local residents.

That failure was pointed out in a report by independent auditors, the contents of which were leaked last Friday by two local newspapers.

The report by three experts from Switzerland, the United States and Chile, which was commissioned by the governmental National Environmental Commission (CONAMA), indicated that regardless of 153 measures proposed in 2000 to improve air quality in Santiago, there was no significant improvement by 2005 – a finding that the report described as “alarming.”

Lagos, who completed his six-year term of office on Mar. 11 when he handed over to President Michelle Bachelet, proposed the ambitious 10-year clean air plan for the capital at the start of his mandate.

Greater Santiago is home to six million people, out of a total population of 15.6 million. Smog is a major problem for the city, which is located between the Andes mountain chain and the Pacific Ocean, because the mountains hinder wind circulation.

“The auditors’ report is absolutely right. It clearly states that political will was lacking to implement the anti-pollution plan, assign resources, and generate synergy between different public institutions,” Sara Larraín, director of the Sustainable Chile Programme, a network of environmental organisations, told IPS.

Rodrigo Herrera, campaign coordinator for the Chilean branch of Greenpeace, remarked that the audit showed that “the government lied to the people,” when it systematically announced the plan’s supposed achievements, such as reductions in pre-emergency environmental alerts in Santiago.

“It’s frustrating to discover that there has been no improvement in five years. It shows that the government did not take environmental issues seriously, and instead improvised bandaid solutions,” Herrera said to IPS.

Both activists pointed out that the expert report is in agreement on several points with a study carried out in 2005 by representatives of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), which reported the lack of inspections, controls and standards, and the need for a strong environmental authority.

Although CONAMA has not officially published the report, the Santiago newspapers El Mercurio and La Tercera obtained access to it.

La Tercera reported that according to the auditors, out of 153 measures proposed by the anti-smog plan in 2000, only 32 showed progress by 2005, whereas 84 were delayed, 29 had not been implemented, and there was simply no information from government agencies about the remaining eight.

The authors of the report indicated that the 18-month delay in the Transantiago plan to upgrade the public transport system in the capital, and the problems experienced in making natural gas the main energy source, were two of the main obstacles to improving air quality.

They also criticised the Chilean authorities for failing to adopt an emission control standard for the smallest airborne solid particles, known as PM 2.5 or respirable particles, which pose the greatest health risk because they penetrate the respiratory system further than larger particles.

Air quality measurement stations in Santiago mainly measure coarse particulate matter, known as PM 10, emissions of which exceed the Chilean standard by 75 percent, even though the standard is more permissive than those of industrialised countries. Carbon monoxide is also 80 percent over the maximum limit, according to the report.

“In the last five years there has been little or no improvement in air quality or reduction of industrial emissions,” the experts added. They said that some 10,000 companies generate energy using unregistered diesel equipment, and that there are only 45 environmental inspectors in the capital to enforce regulations in a further 4,000 industrial plants.

Jaime Dinamarca, head of environmental questions in the Sociedad de Fomento Fabril, the association of industrialists, told IPS that it was not his place to comment on press articles about the report.

CONAMA confirmed that the report had been leaked to the media, and said they would make it public at an unspecified future date.

Nevertheless, Dinamarca maintained that “up to 2005, the industrial sector has met absolutely each and every anti-pollution target set for us,” in spite of the objections they had to these plans since they were first formulated in 1997 and 1998.

The business executive commented that industry “is the only sector to have met all the goals, even some of those set in 2005, while other sectors did not reduce their (contaminating) emissions, and in fact increased them.”

Larraín said that when she sat on CONAMA’s Consultative Council, representing civil society, both she and the Medical Association repeatedly proposed establishing a standard for PM 2.5 emissions, but the recommendation was not taken up by the authorities.

The environmentalist pointed out that the report does not go into the relationship between reduced natural gas supplies from Argentina and the incipient energy crisis in Chile, and the negative environmental impact as oil is increasingly used as an energy source.

Given this situation, she stressed the need for a broad energy savings campaign, and said higher priority must be put on afforestation, the creation of green areas, and the search for ways to improve traffic flow through good transport management.

Herrera agreed with Larraín on the need to fight smog in Santiago with policies based on clean energy sources.

The environmentalists emphasised that both the OECD report and the leaked audit suggested strengthening the environmental authority by creating an environment ministry, a step that President Bachelet is committed to, and which should become a reality within the next few months.