U.S. EPA's (IES) Program, with funding from US AID, supported an in-country team to analyze greenhouse-gas and air quality "co-benefits" in the Metro Manila area. The team, managed by the Manila Observatory with technical support from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, along with support from a range of government, academic, and other partners, recently completed its report, and presented its findings and recommendations to a number of stakeholders, including senior-level government policymakers at the national and city level, transport workers, and NGOs.

Other contributors to the IES analysis and report included the University of the Philippines, the national Philippines Department of Environment and Natural Resources, the Department of Health, and the Department of Transportation and Communications.

Three policy scenarios out of seven analyzed would have substantial health and economic benefits: implementation of a rigorous maintenance and vehicle inspection system (MVIS); switching from two-stroke to four-stroke tricycles; and expansion and use of metro railways. Carbon dioxide (CO2) and particulate matter (PM10) emissions could be considerably reduced with the policies listed above, especially the MVIS (30% CO2 and 29% PM reductions of transport-sector business as usual - BAU - by 2015) and Metro railway policy scenarios (13% CO2 and 18.2% PM 10 reductions of transport-sector BAU by 2015).

In terms of mortality, one of the health end-points analyzed, the MVIS scenario could result in a mid-point reduction of nearly 1,900 cumulative premature deaths in Manila through 2015, and conversion of 2-stroke to 4-stroke tricycles would yield a benefit in the reduction of 2082 premature deaths over the same period. In addition, substantial reductions in morbidity (e.g., hospital admissions, asthma attacks, bronchitis episodes, etc.) could be averted, depending on which scenarios were to be implemented. As expected, combinations of several policy scenarios would result in even greater health and economic benefits as well as reduction of CO2 and air quality improvements (one combination scenario could yield 53% CO2 and 69% PM10 reductions of transport-sector BAU by 2015).

You can view the final report on U.S. EPA's IES Program site at
http://epa.gov/ies/documents/philippines/manilafinalreport.pdf .

For more information, contact U.S. EPA's Kevin Rosseel at [email protected] or +1 202 343-9731.