Breathing clean air

Breathing clean air

At long last, the Jakarta administration launched a campaign
on Wednesday to bring the level of vehicle emission under
control. Given that this is the first conscious effort to deal
with the problem, it comes as no surprise that on the first day
of the campaign nearly all of the 100 vehicles tested failed: 80
percent exceeded the tolerable limit set for hydrocarbons, carbon
monoxide and smoke. The only elements of surprise in the
operation were that brand-new cars were among them, and that a
car using liquefied natural gas, which is touted as being more
environmentally friendly compared to gasoline, failed the test.

A clean air campaign for Jakarta that targets vehicles is long
overdue. The United Nations Development Program ranks Jakarta as
the world's third most polluted city after Mexico City and
Bangkok. The World Bank puts the annual cost of air pollution in
Jakarta at US$600 million. The city administration says exhaust
emission contributes to 67 percent of Jakarta's air pollution,
far above the 19 percent contributed by the industrial sector, 10
percent by household activities and 4 percent by garbage
incineration.

The problem will continue to worsen by the day unless
something drastic is done soon. Jakarta already has 2.5 million
vehicles, including 700,000 public transportation vehicles. By
2010, the number is predicted to grow to 4.3 million vehicles.

If we find these figures staggering, the impact of air
pollution on people's health is horrendous. Dust pollution in the
air is reported to cause 449,000 cases of chronic bronchitis and
asthma a year, while lead -- unleaded gasoline has not caught on
yet in Indonesia -- causes some 62,500 cases of heart disease and
high-blood pressure annually. Another World Bank study said acute
respiratory infection is responsible for the deaths of 15 percent
of Indonesian children under five, and for 6.2 percent of all
deaths in Indonesia. In Jakarta, it accounts for 12.6 percent of
all deaths.

These are not new facts. So much has been written about the
dirty and poisonous air of Jakarta and its impact on the health
of its citizens. The debate on the problem of air pollution has
been reduced to the familiar "NATO" discourse: No Action, Talks
Only. Problems and their urgency are recognized, but real action
is rare. Granted, the city does not have a Clean Air Act, but it
is not totally devoid of laws and rules. The 1992 Traffic Law
makes a provision requiring people to control car exhaust; a 1990
gubernatorial decree sets the tolerable limits of emission of
carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxide, hydrocarbon and smoke from
vehicles.

This week's campaign to control exhaust emission, while highly
welcome, is but a very small first step. Its effectiveness is
limited. The authorities are simply issuing green stickers to
drivers whose cars pass the emission test, and red stickers to
those who fail. Obviously this is far from sufficient. We need a
campaign that makes the regulations stick.

Somewhere down the line the government intends to link exhaust
emission tests with the annual renewal of vehicle registrations
(STNK), enforce regulations, and mete out punishment. But, so far
we have not heard their game plan to enforce this.

With the gravity of the problem widely accepted and the
regulations in place, what seems to be lacking is political will.
This has a familiar ring when dealing with environmental problems
in the country.

The onus of a strict regulation on exhaust emission will fall
on car manufacturers first, and on consumers through higher
prices later. Similarly, the onus of phasing in unleaded gasoline
will fall first on manufacturers and eventually on consumers who
will have to pay more to run their cars. These are politically
unpopular measures, and we suspect this is why little is being
done.

The result of the first day of emission tests however makes
the argument for the city to act now even more compelling.
Carmakers and motorists have been given enough breathing space.
It's now time to allow the rest of us to breath what we should be
breathing in: clean air.