SUNS4505 Wednesday 8 September 1999

Development: Fighting to Curb Urban Pollution

Mexico City, Sep 6 (IPS/Gumisai Mutume) -- The big cities of the developing world should follow the lead of Argentina and Kazakhstan in battling air pollution by committing to globally set emission targets, according to a leading environmental economist.

"Developing countries could continue on their present path with no obligation to undertake any emissions reductions at all," observes James Barret of the US-based Economic Policy Institute.

"If they were to reduce emissions below their projected levels, however, this would generate emissions credits that they would then be able to sell on the world market."

Rather than jeopardising economic development, emissions reductions using this arrangement would "actually help promote the economies of developing countries by providing a stream of hard currency, while allowing for the differentiated responsibilities recognised in the Kyoto Protocol," Barrett says.

Nearly one year after the Fourth Conference of Parties to the UN Convention on Climate Change met in Buenos Aires, Argentina and Kazakhstan are the only developing nations to voluntarily accept to abide by set emission targets.

The Buenos Aires meeting followed the Kyoto Conference on Climate Change which produced a protocol binding developed nations to accept measures meant to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases but which set no targets for developing countries.

"The Protocol does, however, make provisions for a Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) under which companies in developed countries can undertake projects in developing countries to reduce greenhouse gas emissions," Barrett stresses.

"The companies can then take credit for these reductions and, either use them to offset emissions at home, or sell these credits on a world market," he says.

Human activity in the world's industrial sector already has accounted for the release of greenhouse gases that will raise average global temperatures from 3 to 5 degrees within the next 40 years, according to the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

While developing countries lay the bulk of the blame on the North, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) forecasts that by 2020 most greenhouse gases will be produced in the cities of the south.

Already Mexico City, Sao Paolo, Buenos Aires and New Delhi are considered among the most polluted cities in the world. Heavy outdoor pollution also dogs such cities as Jakarta in Indonesia and Santiago, the capital of Chile.

"The relationship between particulate air pollution and premature death in Santiago is found to be very similar to results from industrial countries," warns one study on air pollution in Chile.

The study found that, while most epidemiologic studies linking particulate air pollution to premature deaths are from Western industrial nations, the developing world is fast catching up.

"Environmental management has benefits," it says. "Among children in Santiago, Chile, reduced concentrations of small dust particles will reduce a range of symptoms from coughs to bronchitis."

Politicians in Chile, concerned about environmental issues, charge that Chilean laws regarding air quality are very permissive in comparison to industrialised countries and the government is not doing enough to enforce regulations.

Critics charge that ever since a hurried plan to counter rising pollution levels was adopted in 1996 the environmental situation in Santiago has worsened.

At various world pollution conferences, there is often a North- South divide on the issue of curbing greenhouse gases.

The United States, Canada and Japan demand similar efforts from developing countries while the latter group, led by Brazil, China and India, stress the need for western aid to help such clean- ups.

The United States, however, remains the world's worst polluter. Between 1990 and 1996, US greenhouse gas emissions increased by nine percent and the accounts for one-quarter of all global pollution, says the OECD.

Under the Kyoto protocol, industrialised nations are granted a stock of credits based on their reduction targets. The US target is to reduce emissions to 7 percent below their 1990 levels.

Barret says a major problem with CDM is that it offers industries substantial opportunities to manipulate the system and get valuable credits for emission reductions they themselves did not achieve.

For instance, if a US company purchases an old inefficient steel mill in India, shuts it down and replaces the mill with one infused with state-of-the-art technology, the American company can take credit for the emissions-reduction and sell these credits in the United States or in other industrialised countries.

"The fact that this process would generate valuable permits atlow cost provides an incentive for multinational corporations to seek out such opportunities throughout the developing world," says Barret.

In Sao Paolo, the largest industrial complex in South America, the alarm bells started ringing in the mid-1970s when people passed out on the streets because of extreme levels of pollution.

Following this, government took measures to control industrial and automobile pollution.

The last decade has seen macro-economic transitions in Latin American countries such as Argentina, Brazil, and Chile which have had serious implications for the structure of their industry, their choice of technologies and their behaviour toward environmental regulations.

All have adopted measures that increase the role of the private sector, opening the economy to international competition, reducing the burden of government regulation, which they hope will assist curb pollution.

"In all three countries, the orientation toward export markets and the degree of foreign participation has increased. Regional free trade agreements are likely to strengthen this trend," notes a recent study funded by the World Bank.

"Chile is negotiating membership in the North American Free Trade Area (NAFTA), a process which implies close scrutiny of Chile's environmental record and policies," the Bank says.

"Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay have joined in a free- trade agreement (MERCOSUR), with which Chile is also negotiating association. Harmonisation of environmental policies is a continuing theme in the MERCOSUR discussions."

While the three countries have established more or less comprehensive systems of environmental regulation, the World Bank says the effective implementation and enforcement of regulations is slow.

"Typical common problems include the focus on command-and-control type regulation, underfunding, lack of basic information, overlap in institutional responsibility, insufficient enforcement and penalties, and contradictions and excessive complexity in environmental regulations."