Sixth MCAQ Workshop: Implementing Change in Air Quality Management

Contributed by Jed Horne and Robert Slott

Hotel Royal Pedregal, Mexico City. It was just before dinner when the quake hit. At first it looked as if everyone in the room had decided en masse to drop what they were doing, possibly motivated by a sudden bout of hunger. After a long thirty seconds, it became clear what was going on: Está temblando , someone said. It’s shaking.

Panelists for the Metropolitan Coordination: Raúl Arriaga, Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo, Mario Molina, Adolfo Mejia Ponce de Leon, Luis Arturo Rivas, Alfonso Iracheta.

It was Tuesday night, the third evening of the Sixth Annual Workshop on Mexico City Air Quality organized by the Integrated Program on Urban, Regional, and Global Air Pollution at MIT and sponsored by the Comision Ambiental Metroplitana (CAM) and the North American Commission for Environmental Cooperation. This year’s conference was held at the Hotel Royal Pedregal in Mexico City, an urban area known for its charm, sophistication, and, unfortunately, earthquakes.

But it wasn’t seismology that had brought the scientists, engineers, and government officials together that evening, and seismology wouldn’t keep them from the task at hand: tackling a solvable but no less scary threat to the region-—the menace of air pollution, a challenge with implications far beyond the Valley of Mexico.

The terremoto was mild, the confusion momentary, and soon the conference-goers regained their composure and went back to work. The evening’s activity was the much anticipated “negotiation game”, the result of months of work by a team of MIT researchers led by Dong Young Kim and Professor Larry Susskind. The game assumes that eight representatives from federal, regional, and local government, business, and civil society have been invited to work together to negotiate an agreement regarding the best ways of combatting air pollution. Participants were assigned one of eight roles and charged with negotiating a set of air quality control measures in a fictitious metropolitan area in Latin America. Participants felt it was a huge success, and many learned negotiating valuable skills they would take back to their daily lives (see article by D.Y. Kim in this issue).

The group had come together two days ago, arriving at the Hotel Royal Pedregal in southern Mexico City from as far away as Boston, Massachusetts and Santiago, Chile. After registration and an elegant dinner, everyone rested up in preparation for the week-long conference.

Panelists for Stakeholder Involvement : Lawrence Susskind, Alejandro Ramos, Angélica Enciso, Richard Cockett, Talli Nauman, Guillermina Guillén.

Metropolitan Coordination: Raul Benet, Alejandro Sosa, Raúl Tornel, Arnold Ricalde, Carlos Sandoval, Manuel Castañeda Rodríguez.

Regional Coordination, Successes and Setbacks

Promptly at nine o’clock the next morning, the program kicked off with welcoming and opening remarks from Luisa and Mario Molina of MIT. The conference was organizedf into four plenary sessions, each examining a different challenge to air quality management in the Valley of Mexico. The first plenary session, on implementing change in air quality management, consisted of three panel discussions. The first panel, Metropolitan Coordination, was moderated by Mario Molina and included the three officials for environment in the Federal Government, the government of the Federal District (DF) and the State of Mexico (EM). Raúl Arriaga of SEMARNAT, Claudia Sheinbaum (Secretaria de Medio Ambiente, DF) and Adolfo Mejia (Secretaria de Ecologia, EM) highlighted the successes and challenges of political reform, reaffirming a commitment to work with the new air quality management program (PROAIRE 2002-2010) and to expand on the efforts of the CAM to facilitate constructive political dialogue among the multiple stakeholders involved. The panelists agreed that Mexico is still maneuvering difficult political terrain with the end of its one-party political system; now federal, state, and municipal cooperation is the key to a renewed commitment to environmental planning. During the discussion, the three panelists were joined by two academics, Alfonso Iracheta (El Colegio Mexiquense) and Luis Arturo Rivas (Instituto Politecnico Nacional de Mexico). Rivas proposed revised the CAM so that it has an independent budget. Mejia added that a permanent technical secretary is needed along with reforms needed to improve its performance. Everyone agreed that change is needed, but the change should strengthen the technical and scientific capability of CAM rather than being the result of a political compromise.

Panelists for Fuel Quality and Vehicle Technologies : Robert Slott (moderator), Sergio Sánchez, Luis Barojas, Tim Belian, José Luis Jaramillo, Arturo Massuttier Morales, Ramón Carlos Torres, Timothy Johnson.

Plenary Discussion : Adrian Fernández (moderator), Gabriel Quadri, Jason Grumet, Francisco Barnés, Fernando Tu dela, Odón de Buen.

The second panel dealt with stakeholder involvement more explicitly. The panel, moderated by Lawrence Susskind, and including Alejandro Ramos (Reforma), Talli Nauman (Periodismo para elevar la Conciencia Ecologica), Guillermina Guillen (El Universal), Richard Cockett (The Economist), and Angelica Enciso (La Jornada), tackled difficult questions of journalistic responsibility, including what it means to be “even-handed,” where the responsibility to educate the public ends and where personal responsibility begins, and when journalism crosses the line from legitimate concern to sensationalism.

The third panel was about stakeholder involvement in the regulatory process. Raul Benet (Greenpeace), Alejandro Sosa (Iniciativa GEMINGO), Carlos Sandoval (Consejo Nacional de Industriales Ecologistas), Raúl Tornel (CONCAMIN), Arnold Ricalde (Diputado, ALDF), and Manuel Castañeda Rodriguez (Diputado, Estado de Mexico) took part. The panelists commented that there was a lot of mistrust between industry and the government in the past, but now they are managing to overcome this, by organizing forums and involving academics, NGOs, private companies, etc., with the idea of reaching an agreement that will minimize losses for industry. The representatives in the Legislature are committed to improving air quality; collaboration between the State of Mexico and the DF is very important, but the Federation has not allocated enough resources for the development of metropolitan coordination mechanisms. Representatives from the industry commented that although they were beginning to feel that their contributions to the policy process are being recognized and included, there is still room for improvement in relations with the government. While the process is becoming more transparent and more participants are getting involved, politics continues to complicate the application of science in policy.

From Politics to Science: Technical Questions Dominate

Taking a stab at these problems from a technical, rather than a political, viewpoint, Adrian Fernandez of SEMARNAT opened the next session by moving to the questions of sustainable energy, fuel standards, and vehicle technology. Jason Grumet of the National Commission on Energy Policy in the United States outlined historical patterns of energy consumption in the US and the difficulty of breaking free from the country’s dependence on foreign oil. Looking more directly at the Mexican case, Fernando Tudela of ITAM discussed greenhouse gas emissions in Mexico and their relationship to economic and population growth; and Francisco Barnés of the Secretaria de Energia paralleled Mr. Grumet’s discussion with a similar analysis in Mexico, highlighting the shift towards natural gas and PEMEX’s efforts to modernize its equipment and reduce emissions. After a panel discussion, the debate shifted to fuel quality and vehicle technologies.

Jose Luis Jaramillo, PEMEX, said to reduce the level of sulfur in the refining process, it is necessary to upgrade the infrastructure of the refinery. PEMEX estimated the cost to produce ultra low sulfur gasoline to be as high as 2.3 billion dollars, or from 6 cents to 12 cents per gallon. Tim Johnson, Corning Environmental Technologies, stated that combining the newest vehicle emission control technologies available with ultra-low sulfur fuels, vehicles are capable of literally “cleaning the air” from what it is today. However, this is only possible by taking a total vehicle/fuel approach, that is, the engine, catalytic converter, and fuel content must all be designed to work together. Cesar Flores, the president of the Mexican Automobile Industry Association

(AMIA) said we face the challenge of an aging fleet- out of 17 million units in all of Mexico, 60% are older than 10 years. If fuel quality is not improved, it will become difficult to comply with tougher emissions standards. But it is also important to control the entrance and exit of vehicles across the US/Mexico border. 100,000 pickup trucks older than 10 years have come into Mexico from the US. In the US, Industry/Government Automotive/Fuel Cooperative Research takes place through the Coordinating Research Council. Tim Belian explained that through collaboration and cost sharing more vehicle, fuel, and lubricant research can be conducted which helps put regulations on a scientific basis. All the results of this collaborative research are available to the government and to the public.

Air Quality and Health Impacts: From Chemistry to Urban Planning

The third plenary session took at once both a more technical and a broader view of implementation. Gerardo Mejia of ITESM oversaw the discussion on air quality measurements and modeling, highlighted by presentation by Peter Lunn (US Department of Energy, DOE), who described the various components of the DOE Atmospheric Science Program, highlighting the value of airborne measurements and the interest in Mexico City air quality. Other presenters discussed the atmospheric chemistry of poly-aromatic hydrocarbons, how to measure regional haze, the challenge of water management, and the successes of the air pollution model developed at MIT for the project.

John Evans of the Harvard School of Public Health moderated the presentations on health impacts. Presenters focused on the risks of diesel emissions. James Hammitt (Harvard School of Public Health) presented the preliminary results of a benefit-cost analysis of diesel particulate filters. Stanley Dawson (California EPA), Tony Cox (Cox Associates) and Eric Garshick (Harvard Medical School) led a stimulating, polemic discussion about the human toxicity of diesel exhaust. The health risk due to inhalation of fine particles (PM2.5) is considered to be the greatest threat from polluted air. Silvia Lask, UAM-Xochimilco, stated that although Mexico City does not currently have a monitoring network for PM2.5, one is planned to be implemented by June 2003. While the controversy surrounding the impacts of diesel exhaust remains unresolved, conference participants were better able to grasp the key arguments made on both sides of the issue.

Finally, Joseph Sussman moderated the presentations on mobility, land use, and urban development. In addition to presentations by government officials from the Federal District and the State of Mexico on transportation and traffic management and progress in implementing caps on urban development, Pablo Trivelli (Universidad de Chile, Santiago de Chile) noted that plans to cope with congestion and pollution have an impact on people’s everyday lives, and therefore popular support is necessary for them to succeed. The Chilean government has made a great effort to collect information and develop tools and professional expertise in the areas of transportation, urban and environmental planning. Henry Malbran (Department of Transportation (SECTRA) in Santiago, Chile) described his country’s experience with transportation planning, an initiative that focused on making transit more attractive, promoting non-motorized trips, and implementing tax and toll schemes that more accurately aligned the use of automobiles with their external costs. Santiago’s successes and continued challenges can serve as a model for policymakers in Mexico and the United States. In contrast to Santiago, Alfonso Iracheta (El Colegio Mexiquense) pointed out that MCMA is currently functioning as two cities, the DF and the State of Mexico. Many issues divide the DF and the State of Mexico, including water provision, population growth and urban expansion, distribution of resources, transportation and the environment. Iracheta discussed steps that need to be taken to move toward metropolitan planning that will improve the environment of the MCMA.

On the third day of the workshop, participants discussed the results of the negotiation exercise mentioned earlier in this article, and broke into working group sessions on integrated scenario analysis and strategies, atmospheric science and health studies, and transportation and urban planning. Participants in the scenario analysis session learned about progress at MIT in developing an effective method of communicating technical atmospheric and econometric data to policy makers. Scenario analysis uses a series of “future stories,” or potential paths for the Mexican and world economies, which are used to describe impacts of different air quality mitigation efforts under uncertainty. The urban planning session focused on the Santiago experience, highlighting key differences and similarities between the two cases and developing bonds between researchers and politicians that will likely prove to be useful in the future. The participants in the atmospheric science working group listened to additional presentations and devote the bulk of the session discussing the upcoming MCMA-2003 Field Campaign.

On Thursday, it was time to adjourn. In the past four days, politicians, engineers, industrialists, and academics had had an opportunity to teach and to learn, to establish new relationships and to solidify old ones. Despite the almost overwhelming challenge, they had all pledged to combat. There was a sense of hope in the air, and an eagerness to work together for the benefit of the population of this beautiful city.

Audience participants at the Sixth Workshop.

Jed Horne is an undergraduate Research Assistant and Robert Slott is a Visiting Engineer with the Integrated Program on Urban, Regional, and Global Air Pollution.