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Melbourne Ranks First Place in Report on the Impact of Key Environmental Factors on Major Cities in Asia/Pacific, Middle East and Africa.

Sydney, 3 March 2008 – Melbourne was announced today as the top ranking city in a report on the environmental challenges faced by major cities across the Asia/Pacific, Africa and Middle East.

The inaugural MasterCard Worldwide Insights Report - Urbanization and Environmental Challenges in Asia/Pacific, Middle East and Africa saw Melbourne take out first place, followed by Johannesburg second, Singapore third and Sydney fourth. In the bottom three places were Jakarta, New Delhi and Mumbai.

The report features data drawn from the 21 key centers of commerce in the Asia/Pacific, Middle East and Africa region as identified in last year's MasterCard Worldwide Centers of Commerce Index™ and reviews these cities' relative vulnerability and protection from key environmental challenges such as air pollution, infectious disease and natural disasters, identified the impact that environmental factors are already having on the cities and what challenges further urbanization presents in the future.

Melbourne’s leading status is a result of the quality of the city’s water and air and the limited affect climate change is predicted to have on city in the longer term.

“Melbourne’s impressive result as the top ranking city in Asia/Pacific, the Middle East and Africa highlights how appropriate government policies and actions could make a real difference in creating a high urban quality of life; the potential impact of climate change and other less predictable exogenous impacts notwithstanding,” said Dr Yuwa Hedrick-Wong economic advisor to MasterCard Worldwide in Asia/Pacific and the author of the report.

Meanwhile, Sydney’s ranking, in fourth place, reflects the impact that climate change, rising sea levels and the increased prevalence of drought will have on the city.

“The research found that compared to Sydney, Melbourne is less likely to be impacted by climate change. Sydney is more likely face the risk of rising water levels, resulting in permanent flooding of suburban areas,” says Dr Hedrick-Wong.

An analysis of the report's environmental rankings across the 21 cities indicates that historically, the higher-income cities have been able to provide improvements in environmental quality (such as Singapore, Tokyo, Melbourne and Sydney.) Meanwhile poorer cities at a lower level of development usually suffer from a lack of basic infrastructure services such as clean drinking water and sanitation. As they industrialize and income levels increase, basic services are usually improved, but new environmental problems emerge, such as traffic congestion, air pollution and toxic wastes.

This diversity of performance across cities is perhaps best illustrated in the report by the stark contrast between Melbourne (1st) and Mumbai (21st).

The differential between these two cities can at least in part be explained due to Melbourne's low population and city growth rates, positive wealth and income levels and a generally healthy economic condition.

Conversely Mumbai shows the signs of a city challenged with keeping up with the rapid growth of its population and city size. The strain on natural resources, goods and services and general infrastructure is apparent through the prevalence of such negative features as frequent outbreaks of endemic diseases, partial coverage and frequent malfunctions of sewage systems, and poor air quality from traffic and industry.

Similarly in China, Chengdu (12th) Shanghai (13th) and Shenzhen (15th) and Beijing (17th) are growing (or urbanizing) rapidly, but as the report shows all three cities perform poorly with regards to air pollution, water potability and waste removal. This combined with the high risk of natural disasters such as typhoons and earthquakes in these cities leads to their low rankings in the report.

In establishing the rankings, the new report has considered three dimensions,

1. Factors largely under the government’s control
2. Factors not considered to be under the government's control and subject to climate change
3. Factors linked to unpredictable environmental risks such as natural disasters

These three dimensions were then weighted based on the perception that the most important dimension by far is the quality of the day-to-day environment (Dimension 1), since that is the daily experience of the city resident or visitor and its indicators have the most significant impact on health and welfare. Next in importance is the dimension of risks from climate change (Dimension 2), since the trends are to some extent predictable and known to be getting more severe. The least important dimension was considered to be the element of unpredictable risk. (Dimension 3),

The dimensions were then weighted as below:

Indicator	Weight (%)
Dimension1	70
Dimension2	20
Dimension3	10

Overall results of combined rankings for the MasterCard Worldwide Index Insights Report on Urbanization and Environmental Challenges in Asia/Pacific, Middle East and Africa

Rank	City	Normalized Overall Rank
1	Melbourne	2.03
2	Johannesburg	2.37
3	Singapore	2.40
4	Dubai	2.70
5	Sydney	3.02
6	Tel Aviv	3.08
7	Tokyo	3.27
8	Seoul	3.29
9	Kuala Lumpur	3.54
10	Riyadh	4.35
11	HongKong	4.93
12	Chengdu	5.25
13	Shanghai	5.54
14	Bangkok	5.79
15	Beijing	5.82
16	Cairo	5.95
17	Shenzhen	6.07
18	Beirut	6.29
19	Jakarta	7.10
20	New Delhi	7.24
21	Mumbai	7.78

Indicators included in this dimension are those considered to be under government control; and they include conditions of water potability, water availability, sewage system, waste removal, air quality, and infectious diseases.

This dimension revealed that those cities that rank lowest in environmental quality suffer from very high levels of air pollution (especially vehicular emissions), absent or ineffective waste removal and coverage (solid wastes and sewage network) and high instances of infectious diseases. Severe limitations to water availability and potability are marked in New Delhi and Mumbai, with Jakarta and Beijing subject to significantly impaired potability. Beirut suffers from degraded environmental services due to political disturbance.

Table 1: Weights of Indicators in Dimension 1

Indicator	Weight (%)
Water potability	12
Water availability	12
Sewage system	12
Waste removal	16
Air quality	32
Infectious diseases	16

Table 2: Rankings in Dimension 1

Rank	Centers of Commerce	Normalized Score (1 = best)
1	Melbourne	1.0
2	Singapore	1.7
3	Tokyo	1.7
4	Sydney	1.8
5	Dubai	2.2
6	Johannesburg	2.7
7	Tel Aviv	3.6
8	Seoul	3.8
9	Kuala Lumpur	4.6
10	Riyadh	5.2
11	HongKong	5.3
12	Bangkok	5.3
13	Shanghai	6.0
14	Chengdu	6.7
15	Shenzhen	6.9
16	Cairo	7.1
17	Beijing	7.4
18	Jakarta	7.8
19	Beirut	8.2
20	New Delhi	9.7
21	Mumbai	10.0

Indicators included in this dimension are not considered to be under government control (at least not directly); and are subject to potential impact from climate change. These include rise of sea level, water scarcity due to drought, severe storms, and fires.

This dimension found that the impact of climate change is likely to be especially marked in Bangkok, Jakarta, Shanghai and Sydney due to flooding from a rise in sea level; they may be less marked in Singapore, Tokyo and Melbourne where adaptive strategies may be easier to implement. Drought is predicted to be significant in the Middle East countries. with offset strategies being variously adopted according to financial strength. Increased incidences and severity of typhoons are predicted for Hong Kong and Shenzhen and to a lesser degree Tokyo.

Table 3: Weights of Indicators in Dimension 2

Indicator	Weight (%)
Sea level rising	70
Water scarcity	20
Severe storms	5
Fires	5

Table 4. Rankings in dimension 2

Rank	Centers of Commerce	— Normalized Score (1= low risk)
1	Kuala Lumpur	1.0
2	Chengdu	1.3
3	New Delhi	1.6
4	Johannesburg	1.9
5	Beijing	1.9/td>
6	Tel Aviv	2.2
7	Beirut	2.2
8	Seoul	2.4
9	Riyadh	3.1
10	Mumbai	3.2
11	Cairo	4.4
12	HongKong	4.8
13	Shenzhen	4.8
14	Dubai	5.0
15	Tokyo	5.4
16	Singapore	5.4
17	Melbourne	6.2
18	Shanghai	6.2
19	Jakarta	6.7
20	Sydney	8.4
21	Bangkok	10.0

Indicators in this dimension are those considered to be highly unpredictable (hence exogenous), but all have immediate impact on the environment of the centers of commerce nonetheless should they occur. They are earthquakes, typhoons, hurricanes, and volcano eruptions.

These dimensions revealed that unpredictable risks are pronounced in the case of Tokyo and to a degree in Jakarta and the cities in China. Tokyo is in close proximity to volcanic activity, subject to severe earthquakes and lies in the path of frequent typhoons. The remaining cities are relatively free of these events either singly or in combination. Preparation measures receive significant attention and have been put in place to minimize the effect of these events in Tokyo and Hong Kong.

Table 5: Weights of Indicators in Dimension 3

Indicator	Weight (%)
Earthquakes	75
Typhoons/Hurricanes	20
Volcano eruptions	5

Table 6. Rankings in dimension 3

Rank	Centers of Commerce	— Normalized Score (1= low risk)
1	Melbourne	1.0
2	Johannesburg	1.0
3	Sydney	1.0
4	Tel Aviv	1.0
5	Riyadh	1.0
6	Bangkok	1.0
7	Beirut	1.0
8	Shanghai	1.2
9	Singapore	1.3
10	Dubai	1.4
11	Kuala Lumpur	1.4
12	Cairo	1.4
13	New Delhi	1.4
14	Mumbai	1.4
15	Seoul	1.6
16	Beijing	2.9
17	HongKong	2.9
18	Shenzhen	2.9
19	Chengdu	3.3
20	Jakarta	3.4
21	Tokyo	10.0

Note to Editors: Full details of the insights report are available at www.masterintelligence.com.

MasterCard Worldwide advances global commerce by providing a critical economic link among financial institutions, businesses, cardholders and merchants worldwide. As a franchisor, processor and advisor, MasterCard develops and markets payment solutions, processes over 16 billion transactions each year, and provides industry-leading analysis and consulting services to financial institution customers and merchants. Through its family of brands, including MasterCard^®, Maestro^® and Cirrus^®, MasterCard serves consumers and businesses in more than 210 countries and territories. For more information, go to http://www.mastercard.com.

Melissa Devine, 02 9818 0950 / 0401 926 069, mdevine@ppr.com.au