Ulaanbaatar, February 09, 2006 - A roundtable discussion with the external partners on issues facing the city of Ulaanbaatar was held at the Khaan Palace Hotel.
The objective of this round table discussion was to exchange views and ideas between the Municipality and external partners on Ulaanbaatar city development challenges with a special focus on air pollution, urban infrastructure and planning.
The discussion was organized by the City Mayor Office of Ulaanbaatar jointly with the World Bank office in Mongolia. Representatives of the Municipality, local NGOs, business entities and donor communities in Mongolia participated in this discussion and exchanged views on critical issues facing the Ulaanbaatar city.
Participants broadly discussed and exchanged their views on air pollution in Ulaanbaatar within three main themes (a) air pollution, ways to solve; (b) Ger area planning; (c) heating system upgrading.
The current situation of air pollution in Ulaanbaatar has become a very serious problem and concentration of CO2 is much higher than stipulated international standards. The air pollution mainly created by coal-fired heating in Ger area (90 percent of air pollution) while terminal power plant, cars and heating kiln generate only 10 percent of the pollution. The situation calls all stakeholders including the donor community to view the issue as an emergency issue and take immediate action in number of fronts.
The Municipality office has proposed some projects to solve the air pollution problem such as the Development of Master Plan of Centralized Heat Supply System of Ulaanbaatar in coordination with planning of ger settlements; establishment of new solar energy source, part-by-part connection of low pressure boilers to the centralized heat supply network; extension and reinforcement of heat supply network of the city of Ulaanbaatar, introduction of fluid or compressed fuel for use among consumers from ger settlements, energy saving through external walls of buildings.
As an outcome of the meeting was an appeal for all stakeholders: the Government, NGOs, private entities, individual citizens and donor communities to collaborate in solving this emergency and critical issue facing in Ulaanbaatar.
