Asia is experiencing rapid economic and population growth. It is estimated that by the year 2010 over 4 billion people will be living in eastern Asia and the Indian sub-continent. Additionally, these countries are experiencing phenomenal economic expansion. Coal is becoming the primary choice for energy production within this region. This growth has not come without environmental consequences. Asia is experiencing a rapid increase in air pollutant emissions with growth in sulfur oxide emissions paralleling the region's expanding energy needs . The impact of Asia's deteriorating air quality could have wide-ranging consequences for the region. Many urban centers in Northeast Asia have air pollution levels exceeding WHO ambient standards . Acidic precipitation is being reported throughout the region (Khemani et al., 1989, Mohammed and Kamsah, 1993, Wang and Wang, 1995).
      According to a recent study conducted by the Chinese Research Academy of Environmental Sciences, 40% of China is affected by acid rain causing US$1.6 billion worth of damage to crops, forests and property annually (Walsh, 1995). The transport and fate of sulfur in Asia is an area of increasing environmental interest and concern (Carmichael and Arndt, 1995, Robertson et al., 1996,Arndt et al., 1996, Sato et al., 1996, and Sharma et al., 1995) as countries receive growing amounts ofsulfur from neighboring and even distant countries. Transboundary pollution is a problem that has afflicted other regions of the globe and has been tackled successfully in north America as well as western Europe, but the next arena for action on an unprecedented scale would be the continent of Asia. The threat of acid rain causing widespread damage in several countries of Asia has now been estimated, and this provides a timely warning of galloping disaster that could affect human health and well-being in a variety of ways. TERI, has been involved in working on the problem, using a detailed simulation model that was employed in a major World Bank and Asian Development Bank project called RAINS-ASIA, with the Institute as a partner, and has arrived at the magnitude of the danger from acid rain, as a result of growing sulphur dioxide emissions in a number of Asian countries. The haze produced by forest fires is also a matter of widespread concern globally.
      Northeast Asia (Japan, South Korea, North Korea, and Northeast China)is one of the most dynamic and diverse regions of the world. The Southeast Asian sub-region comprises the countries of Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Indonesia,Lao People's Democratic Republic, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and VietNam. Increasingly, the need for regional cooperation in solving environmental problems becomes apparent, more so than with air pollution and acid rain, where the problems do not respect physical or geopolitical boundaries.