Manila one of five Asian cities with ‘good’ air quality — ADB

FIVE ASIAN cities, including Manila, have obtained “good” clean air assessment in a pilot test of the Clean Air Scorecard developed by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and Clean Air Initiative for Asian Cities (CAI-Asia), a statement said Tuesday.

The scorecard gives an overall clean air score from zero, the lowest grade, to a maximum of 100.

Overall score has three indices: air pollution and health, clean air management capacity, and clean air policies and actions.

Results presented at the three-day Better Air Quality conference in Singapore which ends today showed the five pilot cities with “good” clean air score were Bangkok (Thailand), Hanoi (Vietnam), Jakarta (Indonesia), Jinan (China) and Manila.

Details of the report have yet to be released.

ADB said it implemented the project with CAI-Asia Center in Manila last July. It added in a separate statement CAI-Asia Center is planning to implement the project in China.

CAI-Asia was established in 2001 by ADB, World Bank and United States Agency for International Development. CAI-Asia Center is the secretariat.

Other three pilot cities — Colombo (Sri Lanka), Hangzhou (China), and Kathmandu (Nepal) scored “moderate,” while none of the surveyed cities received “minimal” score.

Likewise, none scored “excellent,” indicating ample room for improvement, CAI-Asia noted.

Countries in Asia and Pacific, including the Philippines, must work harder to solve air pollution together with greater efforts to counter climate change, ADB said Tuesday.

It said while indices on air quality and environmental performance already exist, the scorecard is first to present a comprehensive evaluation of management of pollutants and greenhouse gas emissions by countries and cities.

“We think it’s critical to have a comprehensive air quality measure to allow governments to judge how best to tackle air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions,” Director Nessim J. Ahmad of ADB’s Environment and Safeguards Division was quoted as saying in a statement.

He added that working to improve air quality is beneficial to the people’s health and productivity, particularly that of the poor who are most exposed to pollution.

“Rather than judging and ranking cities based on air pollution alone, it is important to also look at existing capacity, policies and measures as these are better indicators for their future levels of air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions,” Sophie Punte, executive director of the CAI-Asia Center, was also quoted in the statement as saying.

The air quality project manager for the Philippines, who is in Singapore, was not immediately available for comment. — J. J. A. Cerda, Businessworld