Asia pays heavy price for smog

Environment ministers from across south east Asia are warning that this year could see the region’s worst ever smog, costing countries in the region billions of dollars in lost tourism.

The ASEAN Meteorological Centre has warned of an unusually dry autumn because of the changing patterns of the La Nina phenomenon, a cooling in the surface temperature of the Pacific ocean.

The cooling air of La Nina is likely to fade in the autumn, leaving vast areas of south east Asia covered in a smoky haze, the result of persistent forest fires on the Indonesian islands of Borneo and Sumatra.

The fires are lit mid-year by plantation firms and farmers clearing plots of land ready to plant crops in the autumn.

Environment ministers from Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and Brunei have been meeting in the administrative capital of Malaysia to discuss the haze.

The smoke and destroyed forests are not only detrimental to the environment; they cost south east Asian economies billions of dollars every year in lost working days and tourism.