Air pollution costs RI billions of U.S. dollars in economic losses

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Air pollution has cost Indonesia billions of U.S. dollars in economic losses, deputy minister for Technical Infrastructure of Environment Management of the State Ministry for Environment Masnel Yarti Hilman says.

Citing data issued by the World Health Organization (WHO), Masnel said that air pollution had cost Indonesia US$634 million in economic losses in 2000, up from $424.3 million in 1990.

She said economic losses resulted from health problems associated with the pollution and environmental impacts, including droughts and acid rain which directly affected farmers.

"Air pollution is very dynamic, it can move from one region to another in a short period of time. So, air pollution knows no administration and territorial borders," Masnel said when opening the second Technical Working Meeting on Ambient Air Quality Monitoring in Denpasar, Bali on Monday.

Masnel said economic losses would soar if the government did not take steps to tackle the problem.

However, she fell short of listing the steps the government had to or would take to improve the country's air quality.

She said sources of air pollution included industrial emissions, vehicle emissions, households and forest fires.

The meeting was attended by 40 participants from ten big cities in Indonesia, and delegations from Bali and East Nusa Tenggara.

Masnel said air pollution had become a serious problem for Indonesia in the past few years, especially in big cities like Jakarta, Surabaya in East Java, Semarang in Central Java, Medan in North Sumatra, and Makassar in South Sulawesi.

The poor quality of air had also increased the prevalence of respiratory diseases, triggered acid raid and reduced the intelligence of children.

Experts have also attributed the global warming phenomena to the poor quality of air.

To inform the public about the quality of air in big cities, the government has provided air quality monitoring equipment along with data displaying the health of the population in the ten biggest cities.

The ten big cities are Denpasar in Bali, Jakarta, Medan, Pekanbaru in Riau, Jambi, Bandung in West Java, Semarang, Surabaya, Pontianak in West Kalimantan, and Palangkaraya in Central Kalimantan.