sectoral economic costs and benefits of ghg mitigation - IPCC

Ranjan K. Bose
The case of Mexico City and Santiago
The World Bank Study in the two Latin American cities has revealed that despite the success in
reducing the local air pollution problem in these cities, GHG emissions have reduced only
marginally. For instance, the 26 measures identified in Mexico (covering vehicle retrofitting,
emission standards and inspection programmes, fuel improvements and alternative fuels) are
technically oriented, and none of them deal with demand management or alternative
transportation modes (Eskeland and Xie, 1998). But, such locally motivated programmes have a
very limited effect on the global environment. While the Mexico programme can reduce 64% of
the locally weighted air pollutant emissions from motor vehicles, but would reduce only 6.5% of
GHG emissions. In fact, the 6.5% may well be an upwardly biased estimate, because no changes
in travel demand are assumed for these technical options, even though some of them deliver gain
in fuel efficiency. This rather unimpressive synergy is also found in the Santiago case study, for
which identified measures (only emission standards for buses, cars and trucks are considered
here) in the locally motivated programme reduced 65% of the local pollution from these sources
but only 5.3% of GHGs. The reason being these studies focussed primarily on technology
improvement and not on travel demand management.
Generally speaking, if there has to be an agreement on a strategy between local and global
environmental agenda, then typically it is because the strategy either alters total fuel consumption
or because it shifts consumption towards less carbon intensive fuels by modifying the travel
behaviour.
The technological fix is not sufficient
The vehicular emissions reduction strategy identified by the relevant governments and their
instrumentalities in large size cities of developing countries is based primarily on a search for a
technological fix.
Therefore, air quality strategies which count on advances in technical measures alone - such as
in-vehicle emission control devices or fuel efficient engines or emission standards or fuel
improvements or alternative fuels - are bound to be limited in their impact on CO 2 emissions.
This is because they do not address the rise in private vehicle ownership caused by economic
growth nor do they consider the increased vehicle use, that is induced by improved automotive
technology and fuel quality itself, such as the reduced cost of travelling associated with more
fuel-efficient vehicles. In view of this, the overall strategy to mitigate emission of local air
pollutants and GHGs, needs to be modified particularly in developing nations where the nature of
the problem and array of options is different from those in wealthier and more developed
countries. The needed alterations to the current strategy are: (a) greater focus on costeffectiveness
rather than state-of-the-art technologies; (b) an increased reliance on demand
management measures rather than exclusive attention to supply side interventions; and (c)
adopting a more comprehensive and preventive package of longer term measures rather than the
current piecemeal approach.
The Challenges and Opportunities Ahead
Though limited, available studies in developing countries produce a relatively high degree of
convergence, in which findings can be related to one another. However, many challenges remain.
Some of these involve compiling credible data and a methodology for setting up a database, tools
of analysis, and setting up of a unified institutional framework as described below.
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