A woman in Riau in Sumatra wears a mask for protection from the pollution caused by forest fires. Credit: Ulet Ifansasti/Greenpeace.

By Sudeshna Sarkar
KOLKATA, India, Aug 11 2013 (IPS)

When there is feasting in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, there could just be a connection between the celebrations and the fires on Indonesia’s Sumatra Island that trigger frequent transboundary smog.

And when China’s population of more than a billion consumes yet more noodles, Malaysia should perhaps brace for greater air pollution.

Though not as simplistic and direct, there is nevertheless a tangible link among all these happenings and countries. It’s called palm oil, Asia’s new “liquid gold”.

Southeast Asia – read Indonesia and Malaysia – are the biggest producers of the oil obtained from the fruit of the oil palm tree, accounting for nearly 85 percent of global output.The wonder oil carries an ecological price tag.

India and China are its biggest consumers, with Pakistan and Bangladesh emerging as growing markets. As the major buyers, they not only influence price and production, but can also impact the way the oil is produced, currently controversial because of its adverse effect on the environment.

Dr Reza Azmi, founder and executive director of Wild Asia, a social enterprise in Kuala Lumpur working for sustainable tourism and agriculture, explains why oil palm has become such a hot product in Asia.

“It provides a higher source of income compared to other cash crops like paddy or rubber,” he tells IPS. Farmers can harvest bunches of oil palm fruit twice a month, while paddy can be harvested twice a year. Oil palm also produces the highest yield per area compared to other crops.

Moreover, it is cheap and used in an amazing variety of products: food from Nestle’s Kitkat to halwa, the dessert obligatory during most festivities in South Asia; a wide array of cosmetics, from lipsticks to shampoos; and biodiesel.

However, the wonder oil carries an ecological price tag.

As farmers fell trees and set fire to vegetation to clear more area for cultivation, it destroys forests and endangers wildlife, triggering smoke and recurrent hazes.

This June, Southeast Asia suffered the worst air pollution in 16 years. Smog from Indonesia choked Malaysia and Singapore. Visibility decreased, schools were closed and public programmes cancelled. Hospitals saw a rush of patients with respiratory diseases. A diplomatic row erupted between Singapore and Indonesia over culpability.

A transboundary meet in Kuala Lumpur in July saw the environment ministers of Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei, Thailand and Singapore agree on a joint haze monitoring system. Indonesia also agreed to ratify a regional treaty to fight smog. But the fires continue to burn.

This is where China and India can play a major role by insisting on buying only palm oil produced without endangering forests.

The movement for sustainable production gathered momentum in 2004 with the formation of the Roundtable for Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO), an industrial initiative to persuade planters to keep off primary forests and conservation areas and minimise their environmental footprint.

“RSPO-certified sustainable palm oil currently represents over 15 percent of global crude palm oil production spread over 50 countries, including Indonesia, Malaysia, and Papua New Guinea,” Darrel Webber, RSPO secretary-general tells IPS.

“A number of countries are making national commitments to sourcing only sustainable palm oil by 2015, including the Netherlands, Belgium, the UK, France and Germany,” he added.

However, the two biggest consumers, China and India, are yet to follow the trend.

“While businesses in the West are making big strides to support the sustainable production of palm oil, large volume users in India and China are yet to get on board,” says Bob Norman, general manager at GreenPalm, an RSPO associate. “If the movement is to be a global success and achieve its aims, food service companies, retailers and other volume users in Asia need to engage with this issue.”

After India, China is the second-largest importer of palm oil. The demand is expected to grow 10 percent annually, which would make China the largest market by 2015.

However, only 15 Chinese companies are RSPO members so far.

Still, Webber thinks the sustainability campaign will find more takers after RSPO’s alliance with the Chinese Chamber of Commerce of Foodstuffs and Native Produce under the ministry of commerce.

The Chinese government’s 12th Five-Year Plan (2011-2015) emphasises low carbon consumption.

India accounted for 19 percent of the global palm oil consumption in 2011-2012, more than China (16 percent) and the European Union (14 percent).

Dr B. V. Mehta, executive director at the Solvents Extractors’ Association in Mumbai estimates the Indian demand will increase by three to four percent per year as the cheap oil is used more and more in India’s food and hotel industries.

“Considering their use and import, it is imperative for Indian companies to move towards sustainable palm oil and practices,” says Webber. “By committing to source only certified sustainable palm oil, Indian companies can take a step towards ensuring future supply of clean palm oil while also taking responsibility for the global impact of their imports on the environment and the climate.”

Indian companies began joining the RSPO in 2006. Currently, there are 26 members.

Webber calls it a “strong indicator that business commitment and demand for sustainability is increasing in the country,” but Mehta says the huge population that still remains below the poverty line will pose a tough challenge.

“India supports sustainability but the poor Indian consumer is looking for cheap oil,” Mehta says. “People in the EU can afford to pay a higher price for certified palm oil but not in India, where thousands are struggling to feed themselves.”
Norman remains optimistic. “Economic prosperity in India and China has seen a rise in ethically conscious consumers,” he says. “Over time, this broader understanding and concern about the issues surrounding the production of palm oil will invariably lead to an increase in demand for food manufacturers and retailers to support sustainable production.”

Air pollution control: Guanabara Bay seen from the Rio de Janeiro-Niteroi bridge. Credit: Mario Osava/IPS

By Fabiana Frayssinet
RIO DE JANEIRO, Dec 24 2012 (IPS)

Environmental authorities in this southeastern Brazilian city are installing more air quality control stations in the locations where competitions are to be held during the 2016 Olympic Games, so that air pollution will not hurt the athletes’ performance. The 16 new air quality monitoring stations in Rio de Janeiro, which will cost 14 million dollars, will carry out a constant check on emissions of polluting gases like carbon monoxide.

They will also transmit real-time meteorological data minute by minute to a computerised centre at the State Environmental Institute (INEA). The monitoring stations, added to the five that already exist in the city, form part of the “environmental commitment” signed by the government and the Brazilian Olympic Committee, Carlos Minc, the environment secretary for the state of Rio de Janeiro, told IPS.

“Some air pollutants affect athlete performance. Ozone is one of them,” he said. Minc’s interview with IPS took place during the installation of a monitoring centre at the Rodrigo de Freitas lagoon, where rowing and other aquatic competitions will be held.

According to Minc, a very small increase in the concentration of ozone (a pollutant and respiratory hazard at ground level) is enough to prevent an athlete setting a new record in a sport such as a marathon or a swimming race.

Expansion of the monitoring network and other local government environmental policies will allow strategies for prevention and immediate action to be implemented in the Olympic areas and generally throughout the city. For instance, if air pollution is detected at the INEA centre, the authorities can make changes such as diverting bus routes, temporarily closing nearby gasoline stations or altering the operating hours of a factory, Minc said.

Build-up of pollutants to the point of air saturation will also be avoided, he said. “This is important because a big city needs a basic monitoring network in order to develop a policy to combat air pollution,” he said.

The programme is complemented by a municipal system of eight automatic monitoring stations working 24 hours a day that issue daily bulletins.

The local government is concerned about extremely densely populated areas where pollution levels are increasing due to growing traffic. At times of prolonged drought, the smog gets worse.

The system will be introduced in outlying parts of Rio de Janeiro by March, as well as in nearby municipalities such as São João de Meriti, Nova Iguaçu e Belford Roxo, São Gonçalo, and the region of Baixada Fluminense.

In some of these areas pollution is intense, particularly because of the dirt roads. Where this problem is detected, the roads will be paved, Marilene Ramos, the head of INEA, told IPS.

Besides providing the public with constantly updated information about the quality of the air that they are breathing, and detecting where the problems are, the most important thing is to arrive at solutions, she said. There are places where traffic jams continually occur, where urgent measures could be taken, she pointed out.

Ramos said “another factor is the 2016 Olympic Games, because we need to know the environmental conditions in which they will be held, and what can be done to reduce problems.”

The problem is “evidently not an easy one to solve, but knowing the facts of the situation is a step towards devising solutions,” she said.

Carlos Fonteles, head of environmental information, monitoring and oversight for the state of Rio de Janeiro, told IPS that the automatic monitoring stations transmit data instantly to a central computer “minute by minute and in real time.

“Previously we only had five automatic stations, and now we are making a great leap forward with these. We are expanding our daily coverage capacity,” he said.

With the first five stations, the local government “had very limited information in those critical areas where there were large traffic corridors and big urban concentrations,” he said. “Now I am able to monitor not only those but other areas as well, and for other purposes, like the Olympic Games,” he said.

An anti-fracking demonstration in Manhattan, New York City organized by CREDO Action and New Yorkers Against Fracking. Credit: CREDO: Cuomo Policy Summit/cc by 2.0

By Stephen Leahy
UXBRIDGE, Canada, Sep 25 2012 (IPS)

The planet can be cooled a whopping 0.5 degrees C with fast action to reduce air pollution from coal-fired power plants, gas fracking, diesel trucks and biomass burning, recent studies show.

All it would take is a few regulations and a few tens of millions of dollars over the next two decades to bring dramatic reductions in emissions of short-lived planet-heating pollutants like methane, black carbon or soot and smog.

These are dangerous air pollutants and reductions could save millions of lives, according to studies by the United Nations Environment Programme and the World Meteorological Organization.

“This is one thing that can be done to slow the very disturbing rapid meltdown of the Arctic sea ice,” said Ellen Baum, senior scientist at the Clean Air Task Force, an international NGO working to reduce air pollution.

Last week, the annual summer melt of sea ice shocked scientists by falling 18 percent below the previous record low. Summer ice this year is half what it was 30 years ago and is disrupting weather patterns in the Northern hemisphere.

The vast Greenland ice sheet also experienced a record melt this year, nearly doubling the previous record melt said Marco Tedesco, an associate professor at the City College of New York and world-renowned specialist on the Greenland ice sheet.

Every summer, the surface of Greenland melts but this year’s melt was off the charts. Parts of Greenland ice continued to melt for 40 to 50 days longer than normal, Tedesco told IPS.

This process is being driven by warmer air temperatures, a drop in snowfall and the fact that much of the ice is no longer white but covered with black soot particles, he said.

Those soot particles come from burning diesel and biomass thousands of kilometres away, in Europe, Asia and North America. Snow and ice reflect much of the sun’s heat energy but the combination of the black soot and meltwater ponds, more of that heat is absorbed by the ice, leading to increased melting.

“It is very troubling what is happening in the Arctic,” Rafe Pomerance, former U.S. deputy assistant secretary of state for environment and development, said at a press conference.

A new international group, the Climate and Clean Air Coalition, was created in February this year to spearhead efforts in all countries to take action on these air pollutants. A package of 16 measures to reduce emissions of black carbon and methane have been identified and countries are now working together to find ways to act on those measures.

Last week, the Coalition met in Ghana to work together with African nations to identify ways to reduce emissions of short-lived climate and air pollutants from the African continent. Reducing emissions of methane, black carbon and tropospheric ozone would have “substantial and immediate health, crop yield and other environmental benefits for Africa” in addition to reducing warming, the Coalition reported.

Hi-efficiency cook stoves are a simple, low-cost technology to reduce emissions of soot. In the transport sector, cleaner-burning diesel engines, black carbon filters and low-sulphur fuels can be used. Preventing oil and gas flaring in the fossil fuel sector as well as the reduction of methane emissions are other needed actions.

Much of this has been known for several years. Developed nations have taken action on air pollution, particularly by shifting to cleaner-burning diesel engines. However, there is still much to be done. Europe’s air pollution remains dangerously high, warns a new report released Monday. Despite regulations, tiny particles of soot are reducing European life expectancy by as much as two years, according to the European Environmental Agency study.

In the United States, it has been a “slow process to put these measures into practice”, said Baum. Last year, after decades of inaction, the U.S. finally enacted new regulations to reduce emissions and improve efficiency of motor vehicles. The slow progress “has a lot to with the lack of political will”, she said.

The recent boom in hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, is “taking us in the opposite direction” regarding emission reductions, said Erika Rosenthal of the U.S.-based environmental NGO Earthjustice.

“Fracking has made the U.S. one of the top 10 methane-emitting countries,” Rosenthal told IPS.

The process of drilling for natural gas using the fracking method of pumping large amounts of water and chemicals underground to access shale gas deposits results in large emissions of methane, several studies have shown. Hundreds of thousands of shale gas wells are currently being “fracked” in the United States and Canada. These leak methane, a highly potent global warming gas

Shale gas production results in 40 to 60 percent more global warming emissions than conventional gas, Robert Howarth of Cornell University in New York State previously told IPS. Howarth has done two recent studies estimating the amount of methane escaping and concluded that natural gas from fracking was worse overall in terms of climate heating than burning coal.

Methane has 105 times the warming potential of CO2 over a 20-year time frame, after which it rapidly loses its warming potential. If large amounts of methane are released through fracking – as seems likely with hundreds of thousands of new wells forecast in the next two decades – Howarth says global temperatures could rocket upward from 0.8C currently to 1.8C in 15 to 35 years.

“We’d better have a zero tolerance for methane emissions from fracking,” said Baum.

However, even if there were mandatory requirements – presently there are none – it is difficult to enforce when governments at state and federal are cutting budgets and staff, said Baum.

“We are facing a very alarming situation, and solutions are urgently needed,” said Cecilia Sepúlveda, the dean of the University of Chile medical school, after it was announced that 4,200 people a year in this country die from causes directly attributable to smog and other kinds of pollution.

The official State of the Environment Report 2011, released this week, found that the limits set for ambient fine particulate matter – PM 2.5, which refers to particles measuring less than 2.5 micrometres in diameter – were exceeded in 30 cities in this long, narrow South American country.

PM 2.5 has a profound effect on public health. Studies have linked fine particle pollution to heart disease, strokes, respiratory problems, and premature death.

Experts in Chile say fine particulate matter from copper smelters, thermoelectric plants, and woodstoves used to heat homes affects 10 of Chile’s 17 million people, and is dangerous because it penetrates the deepest part of the lungs, such as the alveoli or bronchioles.

Sepúlveda told IPS that during the southern hemisphere winter – which officially begins on Jun. 21 – influenza epidemics, cold temperatures and air pollution combine to create conditions in which respiratory ailments thrive.

“All of these things come together, and the health system collapses,” she said. In response to this situation, staff at the main public health emergency care hospital in Santiago, the Hospital de Urgencia de la Asistencia Pública, held a strike on Tuesday.

The authorities must urgently address the situation with anti-smog plans that are truly effective, Sepúlveda said.

She suggested, for example, including biomedical indicators in the decision-making process that leads to the declaration of environmental emergencies.

During states of smog emergency and pre-emergency, vehicles are ordered off the streets, factories are temporarily shut down, schools suspend physical education, and families are recommended to keep the elderly and small children at home.

The report published by the Environment Ministry on Wednesday Jun. 6 indicates that the southern cities of Rancagua, Curicó and Coyhaique have the worst air quality in the entire country.

In the southern part of the country, where winter temperatures frequently dip below freezing, the most common form of household heating is woodstoves, which have a detrimental effect on both indoor and outdoor air quality.

In the Santiago Metropolitan Region, which is situated in a valley between Chile’s coastal mountain range and the Andes, the most heavily affected district is Cerro Navia, a lower-income area on the west side of the city that also suffers the effects of overburdened public and private health centres.

Since 1992, the authorities have issued 12 decrees to combat the problem, aimed at curbing emissions from fixed sources such as factories, thermopower plants and homes, and from public and private transport.

There are also nine anti-smog plans currently in operation, from the northern region of Antofagasta to the Araucanía region in the south.

But there are no methods for monitoring and enforcing the PM 2.5 limit for emissions.

The environmental assessment presented by Environment Minister María Ignacia Benítez also took into account soil contamination, garbage, noise pollution, access to clean water and sanitation, availability of green areas, and the country’s environmental heritage.

Benítez stressed the effort her ministry was making to bring transparency to the problem of pollution, and underlined that it was not new.

It would be important to have “stricter norms,” she said, “to be able to develop strategies that make it possible to reduce the levels of fine particulate matter.

“In that way, saturated zones can be declared, air clean-up plans can be carried out, and restrictions can be set,” she added.

For his part, Patricio Pérez, the director of the Meteorological and Environmental Centre at the University of Santiago, told IPS that the report is “quite illustrative of what is occurring in the country with respect to the environment, especially in terms of fine particulate matter, which is what is measured in different cities.

“This information is alarming because we always only talk about the situation in Santiago, where levels are already quite high and worrisome in terms of international health standards, and now it is clear that the capital is not the most heavily affected city,” he said.

Pérez, one of the creators of the Modelo Neuronal, one of the three air quality modelling systems used to predict air pollution levels in the capital, said this kind of instrument “only enables us to slightly anticipate what is going to happen, but with the tools currently available, it is impossible to prevent high pollution events.”

In his view, the biggest hurdle standing in the way of resolving the decades-old problem is raising awareness of the dangers people are facing.

“The smell of wood smoke in the air in cities in the south has been around for a long, long time, but only recently has it begun to be understood that the aroma is not romantic, but a sign of something that is harmful to health,” he said.

Nor has the information from the health authorities reached the public, he said. “Measurements of pollution levels began not too long ago; in fact we are just now completing the system of measuring fine particulate matter in Santiago, so what can we expect in other cities?” he added.

Pérez said different measures are needed to address the specific situation in each region. But he added that “it is not realistic” to think that a definitive solution will be found any time soon.