Hard to breathe: Buildings and the Jakarta city skyline shrouded in haze due to air pollution. — AFP
SOUTH-EAST Asian nations are gearing up to tackle the threat of a tougher-than-usual “haze” season together, as the El Nino climate phenomenon raises the risk of soaring temperatures.
Ministers and officials from the Association of South-East Asian Nations (Asean) met in Singapore last month, where they vowed to ramp up monitoring of wildfires and efforts to prevent air pollution, and finalise a new plan to boost cooperation.
During the dry season in Indonesia – usually starting in August – slash-and-burn clearance of forest and peatland to expand farming and pulp and paper production covers much of South-East Asia in a choking haze for months most years.
Yet environmentalists are concerned that this haze season could be the worst in years, after the World Meteorological Organization warned that temperatures are expected to surge across large parts of the world following the emergence of El Nino in the tropical Pacific for the first time since 2016.
“The prediction is that we are due for a strong El Nino,” said Helena Varkkey, a professor of environmental politics and governance at the Universiti Malaya in Kuala Lumpur.
After a few haze-free years – due to the Covid-19 pandemic and wet weather – a new regional roadmap to address the issue will prove vital ahead of the upcoming season, Varkkey said.
With the prospect of prolonged hot and dry weather raising the risk of widespread haze and air pollution if the burning of forests and peatland is uncontrolled, Asean is seeking to avoid a repeat of recent haze crises like those in 2019 and 2015.
In 2015, between June and October, about 2.6 million ha of land burned in Indonesia, mainly on Sumatra and Borneo islands, according to a 2016 World Bank report. A Harvard University study linked the 2015 haze to more than 100,000 premature deaths in Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore.
During previous haze seasons, South-East Asian nations often failed to work together, experts said, with governments publicly blaming each other and taking little cross-border action, while any Asean policies were seen as too weak to make a real impact.
Mushtaq Memon, a coordinator at the United Nations Environment Programme, said the Asean haze-free roadmap will likely be adopted in August and set out a strategy for the rest of the decade.
It will improve implementation of science-based targets, beef up local action and empower communities, and include a new sub-regional strategy, he said, without giving further details. — Reuters
