Asia faces growing health threat from auto boom
Asia faces growing health threat from auto boom
BANGKOK (AP): Pollution caused by the rapid rise in motor
vehicles on Asia's roads poses a growing health threat that
already causes thousands of deaths in major cities every year, an
expert said on Tuesday.
Population and economic growth put the region at heightened
risk in the decades ahead, Michael Walsh, an international
consultant, told a conference on vehicle air pollution in Asia
that began on Tuesday in Bangkok.
Pollutants from vehicle emissions include carbon monoxide,
ozone, oxides of nitrogen given off by diesel fuel and micro-
particulates. Cancer and heart and respiratory disease are among
the associated health problems.
South and East Asia are forecast to have the greatest increase
in vehicles of any region in the world in the next 15 to 20
years, which could offset progress made so far in limiting the
harmful effects of vehicle emissions and use of unleaded fuel,
Walsh said.
He singled out India, China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Korea,
Japan and Thailand as having made strides to combat the problem.
The black spot in the region is its third-most populous nation,
Indonesia.
"In Indonesia, most of the fuel still is leaded. This is just
direct poison to the children of the country," Walsh told the
conference.
About 90 percent of gasoline in the world is now unleaded.
He said air pollution is thought to be behind the high rate of
respiratory diseases in Bangkok and thousands of premature deaths
every year in Delhi, India.
But Asian countries could "leapfrog" the progress achieved in
Europe and the United States over the past five decades in
limiting vehicle emissions by adopting state of the art
technologies and addressing the threat posed by various
pollutants simultaneously, he said.
"This problem can, if not be solved, then certainly be
dramatically reduced," Walsh said.
More than 100 government officials, environmental scientists
and industry representatives from 13 countries are attending the
three-day conference, to consider clear-air measures for the
region's cities.
The conference is sponsored by the Belgium-based Association
for Emissions Control by Catalyst and the U.S.-based
Manufacturers of Emission Controls Association.
According to the World Health Organization, some 460,000
people are dying prematurely worldwide from exposure to air
pollution, much of it coming from vehicles.
In Asia, the number of motorcycles, cars, trucks and buses has
risen dramatically -- by as much as 600 percent in some cities --
during the past two decades, according to the conference
organizers. Among the biggest polluters are two-stroke
motorcycles that make up almost half of vehicles in many cities.
Supat Wangwongwatana, the Thai government's director of air
quality and noise management, said the number of vehicles in
Bangkok had risen from 600,000 in 1980 to 3,870,000 by the end of
1997.
However, he said scrutiny of fuel specifications in the past
12 years by authorities had led to a "drastic improvement in air
quality in Bangkok, especially for lead."