Indonesia seeks ways to reduce health risks posed by air pollution

Indonesia is seeking ways to reduce health risk caused by transportation-generated air pollution, and one of the most cost-effective options is by taking gas fuel rather than fossil-based fuel, a senior official at the environment ministry said here on Thursday. The option to use gas fuel was considered as the most likely and cost-efficient among nine options discussed at a forum that involves government officials, experts and representatives from the Indonesian Automotive Industry Association, or Gaikindo. "Results from cost-effectiveness from nine options discussed at the forum showed fuel conversion from fossil-based fuel to gas fuel is the most inexpensive one if compared to aspects offered by the other 8 options, "Deputy Environment Pollution Control Minister Sulistyowati said on the sidelines of the discussion entitled "Multi-Stakeholders Forum" held here. "Meanwhile, adopting hybrid technology and providing comprehensive mass transport system were the second and third of most inexpensive solutions," he said. Experts attending the discussion were the senior adviser of United States Environmental Protection Agency (US-EPA) for Asia Pacific region Mark Kasman, and Anup Brandivandekar from International Council for Clean Transportation (ICCT). The other six options were fuel efficiency drive by 10 percent since 2009, gas fuel conversion up to 5 percent by 2021, dumping half of the cars with more than 10 years' service period, conversion of fossil fuel to bio fuels to 5 percent by 2021, acceleration of Euro 2 emission standard on motored vehicles by 2005 and Euro 4 by 2016 and adoption of catalytic converter technology to 25 percent of cars, bus and trucks, Sulistyowati said here. According to an analysis jointly conducted by the Indonesian environment ministry, the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) and US-EPA in 2012 entitled Cost Benefit Analysis on Fuel Economy Initiative, air pollution generated by transportation vehicles had cost greatly people who suffered from pollution-related diseases. Air pollution also exacerbates productivity and affects life quality, which eventually undermined the country's efforts to attain higher growth, according to the analysis. The ministry learned that in 2010, 57.8 percent of Jakarta's residents suffered from various diseases, among others asthma, bronkopneumonia and lung obstructive generated from air pollution. They had to spend a total of 38 trillion rupiah (about 3.4 billion U.S. dollars) on medical treatment, according to the ministry. Should there be no concrete efforts to address this problem, pollution of particulate matters (PM) 10, sulfur dioxide and carbon oxide in the capital city may rise up to 4 times and Ozone and nitric oxide up to 7 times by 2030. The green house effect emission formed in carbon dioxide may also rise up 3 times from 2010 level.