Air Pollution Control Policy Options for Metro Manila

The Asian Development Bank has sponsored research on market-based instruments for managing pollution in Metro Manila, Philippines, where air quality is seriously degraded. This report offers three policy options for reducing particulate emissions and their precursors. For stationary sources, we recommend an emissions fee that creates efficient financial incentives to reduce emissions while raising revenues for monitoring and enforcement activities. For mobile sources, we propose a pilot diesel retrofit program using a low-cost technology that is effective at existing 2,000 ppm sulfur content. Second, we recommmend a charge on the sulfur content of diesel fuel to encourage meeting and surpassing the 500 ppm standard to allow for more advanced particulate trap technologies. Although better data are needed—both for designing controls and for evaluating their efficacy—much can be learned just by implementing these programs, so we make recommendations for starting points.