External publications

Governability of Air: Beyond Water and Land in Coastal Urbanities

Kunz, Yvonne / Anna-Katharina Hornidge
External Publications (2023)

in: Rapti Siriwardane-de Zoysa / Kelvin E.Y. Low / Noorman Abdullah / Anna-Katharina Hornidge (eds.), Coastal urbanities: mobilities, meanings, manoeuvrings, Leiden: Brill, 132-153

ISBN: 978-90-04-51108-8
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004523340_008
Information

The coastal megacity Metro Manila is challenged not only by relative sea-level rise and polluted coastal zones, but also by high ambient emission levels. Black carbon levels, a residue of combustion processes, are a particular threat to the health of the inhabitants. The public transport sector, and in particular old diesel engines in jeepneys, a unique public transport vehicle, is considered responsible for poor air quality. In response, the government of the Philippines has rolled out a programme to modernise the sector, with limited success so far. As the debate on the social dimension of littoral zones is still evolving, little is known about the governance of air quality. Closing this gap, we apply the concept of governability, initially applied to aquaculture and Marine Protected Areas, to gain a better understanding of the air-quality regulations and their impacts. In applying a qualitative, case-study approach in Quezon City, Metro Manila’s biggest city, we scrutinise images, as an element of governance, drawn by jeepney drivers and policy makers in the field. The discrepancy in the technical emissions-control policy documents and the efforts by the transport sector to create an inclusively designed programme reveals challenges, discussed in this chapter, that need to be overcome in order to achieve a transition to cleaner air.