There is no other way to put it, say leading academics, Thailand’s government cannot seem to stop the country’s air pollution crisis from spiraling further out of control. We can’t deny what nature is telling us, they warn. Nonetheless, despite this year’s messages of record-breaking dirty air blanketing many parts of the country for extended periods of time, the policy making culture that created the problem persists, downplaying the threats to human health and allowing conflicts of interest to overshadow meaningful efforts toward solutions.
Asst Prof Dr Surat Bualert, dean of Faculty of Environment at Kasetsart University, says the data for Bangkok’s air quality reveals we are entering a new era. The volume of particles smaller than 2.5 micrometers (PM2.5) that exceed safe levels are lingering in air longer than ever before. “Their ongoing presence creates more unpredictability at a time when the changing climate may also be contributing to extreme weather events, like the prolonged stagnation that fueled Bangkok’s pollution crisis this year.”
Furthermore, Prof Dr Thanawat Jarupongsakul, Chairman, National Strategic Drafting Committee on Green Growth, says his research in collaboration with the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology shows that conditions similar to those over Bangkok early this year, “are likely to become more intense because the air pollution sources help cause the inversion layer that blankets the dust underneath.”
Dr Thanawat explains that any burning, such as fossil fuels or agricultural waste, not only generate PM2.5, but gases. Photochemical reactions turn these gases into ozone particles, which themselves are not only harmful pollutants, but also help to build-up inversion layers. Often, these inversions layers are caused by high-pressure weather coming down from China, generally between December and May. This phenomenon contributes to an urban myth that China’s “winter wind” was therefore the source of Bangkok’s winter pollution. Nothing could be further from the truth, however, says Dr Thanawat. Urbanization has transformed Bangkok’s landscape, creating a heat island effect that actually helps stimulate the formation of inversion layers during winter, and trapping the region’s self-generated pollutants.
Dr Thanawat explains that surface inversions layers can form as low as just 400 meters above the city, and this could last upwards of a month just like in January in year. The behavior of dust under such conditions becomes more irregular and concentrations more hazardous, especially for those living in high-rises.
No command so no control
About 90 percent of the dangerous particles put into the air in and around Bangkok comes from vehicle exhaust, biomass burning, factories, and dust from construction sites. And as the pollution readings ratchet up, so do economic costs.
“Estimates of damages associated with PM10 in Bangkok are around 446 billion baht ($US1.44 billion) per year,” explains Dr Witsanu Attavanich, Assoc Prof at Faculty of Economics, Kasetsart University,” in describing his own research findings on the social and economic impacts of air pollution and their solutions. “Information associated with PM2.5 is not yet available. But damages will certainly be higher than PM10 because it causes more sever health problems.”
Thailand’s Pollution Control Department is well aware of these problems, citing a study by Shi Y, et. al (http://www.pcd.go.th/count/airdl.cfm?FileName=PM2.5.pdf&BookName=PM2.5)
that in South and Southeast Asia between 1999 and 2014. PM2.5 is believed to have caused around 1.4 million premature deaths, mainly resulting from heart failure and coronary artery disease. The same study also suggested a strict control on PM2.5 must be made urgently.
“We can’t seem to market clean air, therefore, there’s no value and people don’t see the costs they have to pay. There must be a study to show that it’s worth it for the government to invest to resolve the pollution crisis. However, the government first has to realize that we’re facing an air pollution crisis that demands such investment,” advises Dr Witsanu.
Instead of taking multiple approaches to tackle this complex problem, the government only resorted to the “command and control” tactic just to appear fully in control of the problem by issuing new pollution control regulations, Dr Witsanu says. From economics perspective, such single approach is proven ineffective because the government does not have enough enforcement resources.
For example, vehicles emitting dangerous black exhaust smoke remain in widespread use and agricultural waste continues to be burned. Some 66 percent of sugarcane that entered the mills this year continued to be harvested by pre-burning of the field to eliminate tall weeds in spite of the government’s anti-burning regulation.
Dr Witsanu argues that economic incentives must be put in place to persuade business operators and the public to change behaviors. These problems must be tackled at their root, he says, advocating directly taxing vehicles for the harm they cause and creating new markets for agricultural waste and biomass that do not involve burning.
To accomplish this, however, would require a seismic shift in policy making, asserts Assoc Prof Dr Niramol Suthamkit, director of Pro-Green Center, Thammasat University.
“Air pollution from vehicles, infrastructure construction and property development are all prioritize urban and economic growth,” she says, adding that there is little space in policy-making that prioritize the environment for society’s overall quality of life.
One need only look at Bangkok’s commitment to automobiles despite the pollution and traffic challenges they represent. According to Transport and Traffic Policy Plan Office, 16.4 million people in Bangkok and suburb, about one quarter of the country’s population, make 32.65 million trips within the metropolitan area every day. Nearly 40 percent of them use cars and trucks, close to 24 percent use motorcycles and the rest use public transport.
Although the number of accumulated registered vehicles has more than doubled in the past decade to 10.5 million vehicles, no effort has been made by the government to reduce these numbers. Instead, transportation plans call for another 1,047 km of roads and expressways over the next decade.
In whose interest?
“Conflict of interest is the major problem within government agencies,” says Dr Supat Wangwongwattana, former director general of the Pollution Control Department and currently a lecturer at Faculty of Public Health, Thammasat University. “For example, the mission of the Industry Ministry is to promote more industry, yet at the same time, it is responsible for industrial pollution control. How does it weigh balance between the two?”.
Like Dr Niramol, Dr Supat says this conflict results from the evolution of state agencies designed to facilitate economic development, but now must manage public concerns that arising pertaining to the environment.
In the wake of Thailand’s air and other pollution crisis, many academics suggested earlier that the government should establish an independent body with full authority to take charge of environmental issues, both in policy making and enforcement. Supat agreed but conceded, however, from his direct experience heading the Pollution Control Department, he cannot envision how such a body could ever be welcomed within the Thai bureaucratic system. A more palatable, but less effective, step might be to seek avenues to break-up obvious conflicts, such as empowering the Pollution Control Department to oversee the environmental aspects of factory licensing, removing the Ministry of Industry from the loop. “Still,” he says, “it depends on a government’s political will.”
Centralized Complacency
“Nationwide PM2.5 have been at alarming levels for a long time, observes Chol Bunnag, director, SDG Move and lecturer from Faculty of Economics, Thammasat University, reflecting the inequality. “Chiang Mai in particular has been at a crisis level for a decade now, but this did not affect Bangkok people directly. Air pollution only became an issue for the government when Bangkok’s air worsening quality stirred-up public debate. Bangkok has always been the priority and the center of authority and development, leaving other parts of the country in the cold.”
Decentralization of decision-making and authority could encourage regional development to address their own needs. Emergency declarations were never made by the central government regarding Chiang Mai’s air quality for fear that it would reflect negatively on the country’s tourism.
Moreover, a “silo-structure” within government agencies has discourages officials across agencies to work cooperatively, focusing instead on their own priorities. Furthermore, says Chol, budget allocations work to reinforce this constraint as they are never made to be shared across agencies, yet the complexities of environmental issues routinely demand an integrated approach.
Nowhere is this challenge clearer, and the opportunities to overcome them more explicit, adds Chol, than Thailand’s publicisied commitment toward meeting the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
To achieve the 17 goals, all of which have the environment implicitly or explicitly contained within them, requires officials with special expertise to work across disciplines and agency priorities, notes Chol. Additionally, the criteria for achievement should also focus on outcomes, rather than outputs.
Jinanggoon Rojananan, senior adivisor, Office of the National Economic and Social Development Council, claims Thailand’s 20-Year National Strategic Plan (2018-2037) and the current 12th National Economic and Social Development Plan are both in line with SDG guidelines.
Jinanggoon says these efforts call for integrated approaches to be applied to budget allocation and working structures. The transition to a more integrated administrative structure is a key recommendation. And the government is now trying to evolve this approach into budget allocations. More bottom-up decision making is being introduced as well, she says, to move the country forward in a more balanced way.
Chol appreciates these efforts, however, he feels that the government is moving far too slowly to actually get a handle on the environmental challenges the country faces.
Public pays for solutions
Improved social consciousness cannot on its own deliver solution, says Chol. Government’s job is not to educate the public and expect it to change behaviors, but to make policies that require public action.
“If you want change, rules and regulations have to be established with some form of motivation provided,” he says. Take for example Holland’s public transit system, he suggests. While Dutch people may or may not be environmentally conscious, they use and support cleaner public transport largely because it’s more efficient. Applied locally, asking Bangkok commuters to use public transport will never work, insists Chol, if private cars and motorcycle are seen as cheaper and more convenient.
Dr Niramol agrees, relying on the public’s good will is not enough. “Something like environmental surcharges must be applied. For example, a fee for plastic bag on individual level. If there’s no push, people won’t change,” she states.
Like so many others, she sees environmental problems growing faster than society’s response to resolve them. Direct environmental surcharges, not indirect taxes from general public revenues, should be used to finance solutions. For example, consumers should be made aware that rice prices must rise so that they shoulder costs associated with shifts away from biomass burning by the agriculture sector.
Dr Amnat Chidthaisong, Assoc Prof from Joint Graduate School of Energy and Environment at King Mongkut’s University of Technology Thonburi, adds that public awareness must be a priority as well, as this fuels government action. But, maybe not in Thailand, he observes, half-jokingly.
Scientists are providing ample evidence that a crisis is here, he stresses, but so far scientific truth is not enough to drive solutions. The government is still playing politics and seeking personal benefits. “Call me a pessimist, by the time the problems are so extensive that people and the government feel compelled to react, we will probably be thinking about migrating to Mars,” he says.
But some educators who believe in the power of the young generation refuse to give up. Mira Chaimahawong is one of them. She stresses that the best way to raise public environmental awareness is allow people to be a part of the solutions since young age through education. For example, at the height of Bangkok pollution crisis she introduced the problem to her family discussion. To learn first hand about pollution sources, she encouraged her children to test burning some household waste and measure the rising PM2.5 pollution right on the spot. Her children then learn every bit of individual action could contribute to a larger problem.
“Therefore, they decide to be a part of the solution,” she says proudly. “Now my children insist on using public transportation instead of cars when we go places.”
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