PORTAL RASMI
JABATAN PERDANA MENTERI
AGENSI PENGURUSAN BENCANA NEGARA
JABATAN PERDANA MENTERI
AGENSI PENGURUSAN BENCANA NEGARA
Using a carbon market-like tool to control air pollution can help developing countries such as India where the standard approach of limiting the emissions with policy making is falling short, a new study has found.
Air pollution is one of the most pressing health issues in India, where the country’s 1.4 billion people breathe air exceeding the World Health Organisation’s guidelines for particulate matter (PM).
Those are particles finer than human hair that can cause severe health issues such as respiratory infections and even lung cancer. This pollution costs the average Indian resident 3.5 years of life expectancy.
Industry is one of the major sources of air pollution in the country, and policymakers have struggled to deal with it by taking the standard approach of creating and enforcing laws around emission limits.
In fact, national PM 2.5 - particulate matter 30 times finer than human hair - concentrations in India increased by 11.6 per cent over the last two decades.
To find an alternative, economists from the University of Chicago and Yale University in the United States and the University of Warwick in England collaborated with the Gujarat Pollution Control Board in West India to pilot a one-of-its-kind emission trading scheme (ETS) to control air pollution.
The pilot has run since 2019, and results published in the May issue of The Quarterly Journal of Economics show that the ETS reduced emissions by 20 per cent to 30 per cent in coal-burning plants that participated with nearly 100 per cent legal compliance compared with those using a standard policy approach.
The ETS pilot delivered “a rare win-win-win” by reducing pollution, decreasing abatement costs and raising government’s success at enforcing the air pollution control law, said Michael Greenstone, Milton Friedman Distinguished Service Professor in Economics at the University of Chicago, one of the architects of the pilot.
“And it did all this in a setting where there was great scepticism that pollution markets could work,” he said.
However, such market tools should only be used to control air pollution in industries where a change in fuel like coal to gas or a change in technology to better filtration systems, for instance, fails to cut pollution, said independent experts.
The ETS should not become a version of the “polluter pays” principle in which industries emit pollution as usual and simply pay small fines, cautioned Swagata Dey, an expert on air pollution control policies with the Center for Study of Science, Technology and Policy (CSTEP), an Indian think tank.
“Rather, such schemes should be used only for industries wherein process optimisation and change in fuel usage are difficult to achieve in the short term,” she said.
The pilot
Touted as the world’s first market-based scheme to control air pollution in an industrial cluster, the ETS piloted with 317 large coal-burning plants, one of major sources of air pollution in Surat, Gujarat.
About 162 plants were brought into the market, while the remaining plants were kept under the existing standard pollution control regulations and spot-checked by the pollution control board to ensure they met the emission limit.
The plants in the market were brought into a cap-and-trade system in which a limit is set on the total allowed PM emissions and is lowered periodically. Plants receive permits to emit a certain amount of pollution, and a plant that can easily reduce its pollution with a technology or fuel change can then trade these permits with the ones that find it harder to cut pollution.
Plants under the Surat ETS not only cut their overall pollution, but they held enough permits to cover their legal compliance 99 per cent of the time, while the plants outside of the ETS met their pollution limit at most 66 per cent of the time.
And it cost plants under ETS 11 per cent less to cut emissions compared with the plants under the command-and-control regulations, the study said.
Challenges
The Surat ETS is partly based on one of the largest such programs in history, the US sulfur dioxide emissions trading scheme - to deal with acid rain - that slashed pollution by 40 per cent between 1980 and 2003.
Based in part on the US example, successful trading markets have been adopted for a variety of pollutants in Canada and Europe. Yet low-income countries have so far not followed these examples.
That is due to countries lacking monitoring and regulatory capacity, said Pallavi Pant, an air quality scientist and the head of Global Initiatives at the Health Effects Institute, a US-based non-profit.
“The relevant departments or ministries (in developing countries) may often lack financial and technical capacity, or even the personnel to effectively implement solutions,” Pant said.
The Surat ETS pilot offers an interesting model that can help generate better data and tracking mechanisms for particular pollution sources, Pant said.
However, it remains to be seen how easily and quickly such a system can be scaled up, especially considering the capacity gaps at state pollution control boards in India and the lack of data and technology, she said.
This story was published with permission from Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, climate change, resilience, women’s rights, trafficking and property rights. Visit https://www.context.news/.
Monsun barat daya bermula 10 Mei ini
- Admin UKK
- Berita
PETALING JAYA – Jabatan Meteorologi (MetMalaysia) meramalkan monsun barat daya bermula 10 Mei sehingga September ini.
Ketua Pengarah MetMalaysia, Dr. Mohd. Hisham Mohd. Anip berkata, lazimnya angin akan bertiup secara konsisten dari arah barat daya dengan kelembapan udara yang lebih rendah.
“Ini menyebabkan kurangnya pembentukan awan hujan dikebanyakkan tempat.
“Sehubungan itu, kebanyakkan tempat di seluruh negara akan mengalami bilangan hari tanpa hujan lebih banyak berbanding musim lain,” katanya dalam kenyataan hari ini.
Bagaimanapun, katanya, hujan lebat dan ribut petir masih boleh berlaku di kawasan barat semenanjung, utara Sarawak dan barat Sabah pada awal pagi.
“Selain itu, fenomena jerebu boleh berlaku sekiranya pembakaran terbuka tidak terkawal terutama pada Julai hingga September.
“Oleh itu, pembakaran terbuka haruslah dielakkan bagi mengurangkan kesan jerebu dan pencemaran alam sekitar,” ujarnya. – KOSMO! ONLINE
Quake of 3.0-magnitude recorded in Thailand's Nakhon Si Thammarat province on May 7
- Admin UKK
- Berita
BANGKOK: The department’s Earthquake Observation Division reported that seven mild to moderate earthquakes were recorded in Myanmar and southern Thailand between Monday night and Tuesday morning, with magnitudes ranging from 1.8 to 4.4.
The earthquake in Nakhon Si Thammarat, with a magnitude of 3.0 and a depth of 1 kilometre, occurred at 5.31am in Saira Subdistrict, Chawang District.
There have been no reports of damage or injuries from the recent quake, the division said. Authorities are closely monitoring the situation and have advised residents in the area to stay alert and be prepared for any further developments. - The Nation/ANN
KUALA LUMPUR (May 7): The Southwest Monsoon is expected to begin on May 10 and continue until September, marked by winds blowing consistently from the southwest across the country.
Malaysian Meteorological Department (MetMalaysia) director-general Dr Mohd Hisham Mohd Anip said that during the Southwest Monsoon, lower humidity levels typically lead to reduced rain cloud formation across most areas.
“As a result, the country will experience reduced rainfall during this period, with more dry days than rainy ones.
“However, heavy rain, strong winds, and thunderstorms may still occur in the western parts of the Peninsula, northern Sarawak, and the western part of Sabah, particularly in the early morning, due to the squall line phenomenon. This occurs when winds converge, creating a line of thunderstorms which can last for several hours,” he said in a statement today.
During the peak of the season, from July to September, there is a possibility of local and cross-border haze if open burning activities are not effectively managed.
He stressed that open burning should be strictly avoided to help mitigate haze and prevent environmental pollution, while also urging the public to use water sparingly during this period.
For the latest weather updates, the public can visit the official MetMalaysia website, download the myCuaca mobile app, follow the department’s official social media channels, or contact the hotline at 1-300-22-1638 for any further inquiries. – Bernama
Dungun: Pasangan suami isteri bersama lima anak berusia antara tiga dan 21 tahun yang terpaksa menghuni pondok berdindingkan kanvas dan berlantaikan kertas tebal bakal berpindah ke kediaman baharu, Ogos ini.
Pengurus Besar Lembaga Kemajuan Terengganu Tengah (Ketengah), Datuk Tengku Ahmad Nadzri Tengku Musa, berkata surat setuju terima (SST) kepada kontraktor yang dilantik untuk kerja-kerja pembinaan kediaman baharu kepada pasangan suami isteri itu sudah dikeluarkan.
Katanya, kerja tapak untuk pembinaan kediaman baharu kepada pasangan itu sudah dimulakan dan rumah itu dijangka siap serta boleh didiami dalam tempoh 14 minggu iaitu pada pertengahan Ogos depan.
"KKDW sudah meluluskan peruntukan di bawah kategori baik pulih program perumahan rakyat sejahtera (PPRS) dan Program Perumahan Rakyat Termiskin (PPRT) untuk kerja baik pulih kediaman kepada pasangan suami isteri itu pada April tahun lalu.
"Tetapi siasatan mendapati rumah asal yang rosak ditenggelami banjir pada akhir 2023 lalu tidak ekonomik dan melebihi kos diluluskan untuk dibaik pulih," katanya dalam satu kenyataan.
Terdahulu, Harian Metro melaporkan sepasang suami isteri dan lima anak berusia antara tiga dan 21 tahun hidup daif di pondok buruk berdindingkan kanvas dan zink serta berlantaikan kertas tebal sejak dua tahun lalu, selepas kediamannya di Kampung Shukur, Pasir Raja, Hulu Dungun rosak dilanda banjir besar pada Disember 2023 lalu.
Tengku Nor Shahida Tengku Hashim, 41, dan suami, Tengku Hassan Tengku Jaafar, 48, terpaksa tinggal dalam pondok buruk yang berpendapatan hanya RM50 sehari tidak mampu untuk membayar rumah sewa selepas kediaman rosak dilanda banjir.
Mengulas lanjut, Tengku Ahmad Nadzri berkata, KKDW sudah meluluskan peruntukan di bawah kategori projek pembinaan kediaman baharu kepada pasangan berkenaan.
Katanya, kediaman baharu untuk Tengku Nor Shahida dan Tengku Hassan akan dibina di atas tapak milikan keluarga pasangan berkenaan dan didirikan di lokasi bebas daripada bencana banjir.
Tengku Ahmad Nadzri berkata, pihaknya mengenal pasti sebanyak 84 kediaman penduduk di kampung berkenaan mengalami kerosakan selepas dilanda banjir besar pada akhir Disember 2023 lalu.
Katanya, KKDW meluluskan peruntukan keseluruhan kira-kira RM1.6 juta untuk kerja membaikpulih 76 kediaman yang rosak dan membina lapan rumah baharu yang rosak dilanda banjir.
