For close to 30 years, Malaysia and its neighbours in Southeast Asia have had to endure transboundary haze pollution.
It’s no different this year, with smog choking many parts of the country.
To the ordinary citizen, a solution to the decades-long problem appears to be nowhere in sight. However, Dr Helena Muhamad Varkkey, an Associate Professor of Environmental Politics and Governance at the Department of International and Strategic Studies, Universiti Malaya, believes it is possible to achieve a haze-free region.
She cites one of the reasons for the never-ending battle is because governments, including Malaysia, were not moving “fast enough”.
“There are frameworks in place, including the Asean (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) Agreement on Transboundary Haze Pollution 2002 (AATHP 2002) and also the Asean haze-free roadmap (Roadmap on Asean Cooperation towards Transboundary Haze Pollution Control with Means of Implementation),” said Helena.
“There has been progress in low-hanging fruits, especially when it concerns not very sensitive issues like information sharing, training, and capacity building.
“While there is progress, countries are moving very slowly and they need to step up to operationalise the more important issues, including the setting up of an Asean Coordinating Centre for Transboundary Haze Pollution Control.”
It has been 20 years since the AATHP came into effect. The AATHP was inked by Asean members in 2002, following a severe haze that hit the region in 1997. The agreement aims to prevent future occurrences.
Helena hoped that when the new roadmap comes into effect, things will not just move forward, but move at a faster pace.
She said one of the outstanding matters that needed to be quickly addressed is the need for a standalone Asean centre for haze coordination.
The Asean Specialised Meteorological Centre (ASMC) in Singapore is the designated body to monitor and assess land and forest fires and the occurrence of transboundary smoke haze affecting Southeast Asia.
Helena, however, said there is also a need to set up the Asean Coordinating Centre for Transboundary Haze Pollution Control in Indonesia.
“At the moment, the secretariat is doing ad hoc, interim duties, but it is overloaded (with work). They have too many things on their plate, so we need this centre (in Indonesia) quite urgently,” said Varkkey.
The centre in Indonesia will be able to facilitate faster and more effective implementation of all aspects of the AATHP.
According to Helena, another area concerning haze in the region is the unresolved issue of ‘assistance’.
“As soon as haze is called, there should be a mutual understanding that assistance, including the supplying of firefighting equipment, will be extended by Southeast Asian nations, and accepted (in the country where the fires are happening) quickly,” she said.
“The delays in putting out fires are mostly due to the clearance (to accept such assistance) required from individual countries.
“Rendering assistance should be operationalised to be automatic, akin to offering assistance during natural disasters, like floods.
Another area which requires standardisation is data. Countries have different ways of measuring the air quality reading.
“Malaysia will say their reading is 100 plus, but Singapore will say it’s 200 due to the different methods of measuring air quality.”
Helena said standardising air quality measurement would be fairly easy to achieve.
Malaysia adopts the Air Pollutant Index (API) system, while Singapore uses the Pollutant Standards Index (PSI).
The API measurements include sulphur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide and concentration levels of particulate matter (PM10), while the PSI is determined by PM10, fine particulate matter (PM2.5), sulphur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide, ozone, and carbon monoxide.
“It’s not really political … it’s just a method of standardising (the readings), but we have not done it.”
“It should be standardised so that everybody has the same number in mind. Right now, Johor and Singapore can have different air quality readings, despite being neighbours.”
What is a bit more political, she said, is the management and standardisation of data, and the kind of meteorological data that is being used.
“Haze must be monitored regionally. While countries right now use their own meteorological data, which is not technically wrong, it leads to situations like when Malaysia says the haze is coming from Indonesia but Indonesia claims that their meteorological centre says otherwise,” said Varkkey.
Earlier this month, Malaysia’s Department of Environment director-general, Wan Abdul Latiff Wan Jaffar, said the fires were worsening air pollution on the country’s West Coast and in Sarawak.
He had said that forest fires in the southern part of Sumatra, and the central and southern parts of Kalimantan (Borneo) Indonesia, had caused haze to cross borders.
Wan Abdul Latiff said satellite imagery showed 52 forest fire “hotspots” in Sumatra and 264 in Borneo, according to a report by the Singapore-based Asean Specialised Meteorological Centre (ASMC), which tracks haze affecting Southeast Asia.
Indonesia’s environment minister however dismissed the claims.
“The fact is that there is no transboundary haze,” its minister Siti Nurbaya Bakar said. She shared ASMC’s images, which she claimed only showed haze in Sumatra and Borneo.
“They (Malaysia) refer to hotspot data? Don’t they know the difference between hotspots and fire spots? If (you) don’t know exactly, don’t talk carelessly,” Siti Nurbaya was quoted in a report.
“This is the root of the problem. If there is an agreement to at least use one standardised source for mapping or monitoring (which is again, already allowed for in the AATHP), it will stop all these problems from happening, said Helena.
Helena noted the challenges to data standardisation included countries not wanting to be told that they are at fault.
On suggestions that Malaysia should also introduce a law similar to Singapore’s Transboundary Haze Pollution Act 2014, Helena said the Act is a “good exercise in trying out something new in the region”.
“It is interesting because Singapore tried to show that it was serious about the issue. There was a lot of positive response to Singapore’s law,” said Helena.
“Unfortunately, it was viewed negatively by Indonesia, as it felt Singapore was overstepping the boundaries.”
The issue at hand, she said, boiled down to understanding.
“If you look back at the AATHP, it does allow for individual countries to put jurisdictional measures in place.
“Singapore understands it one way, Indonesia understands it in another way,” she said, adding this was why Indonesia was not really supportive, resulting in the difficulty in operationalising the Singapore Act.
Enforcing Singapore’s law relies on the cooperation by Indonesia.
“This includes extradition and evidence sharing. All this cannot be done without Indonesia’s support.”
On whether such a law would work for Malaysia, Varkkey said the answer is based on the Singapore experience.
“I think it is good as Malaysia already has Singapore’s example to see what works and what does not.
“For example, I think one of the key stumbling blocks in Singapore’s law is that they tried to cover all entities in another Southeast Asian nation.
“What Malaysia can do is to confine our law to Malaysian entities in Indonesia (involved in open burning) and this will hopefully not rub Indonesia the wrong way, as Malaysia is just basically putting in some checks and balances on the Malaysian side of things.
“So, when Indonesia says your Malaysian companies are the ones burning (the fires in Indonesia), Malaysia can have some form of jurisdictional right to investigate.”
Malaysia currently does not have such powers.
“Right now, Malaysia can only just call up the (Malaysian) companies (in Indonesia) and tell them to ‘please check’ (on the open burnings), and the companies can just say ‘Yeah, okay, we have done our checks, and there’s nothing (fire)’.
“Our current ‘powers’ are limited. A new law (if any) can cover Malaysian entities in Indonesia causing haze in Malaysia or Singapore,” she added.
Moving forward, the ultimate goal, Varkkey said, is to have a smog-free region.
“The fires here are not natural, unlike the Australian bushfires. Realistically, we can have a region without fires that cause haze.
“It is possible as most of the fires happening are anthropogenic (human-induced) and not something beyond control, if measures, including human governance and laws, are put in place.
“And if everything works the way they are supposed to, there is a possibility that we do not have to live with haze in the future,” she added.