Environment

By Joe Fotalattee

Hoang Duong Tung, chairman of the Vietnam Clean Air Partnership, told Vietnam News Agency that significant air pollution is a major issue in many cities. Roughly a third of the days in major northern cities like Hanoi have poor or bad air quality index (AQI) levels. The AQI rose on several days to the dangerous levels of 201-300.

According to Tung, there are many causes of air pollution in Vietnam, including traffic, construction, industrial manufacturing, and customs from rural communities such as burning straw after the rice harvest. Traffic, construction projects, industrial parks, and factories increase the amount of fine dust that causes air pollution, according to Tung.

He put forth many ideas to deal with the problem of air pollution, such as tightening emission regulations for cars and motorcycles and encouraging the use of clean-fuel vehicles, electric cars, and electric motorcycles. He also suggested promoting the use of public transportation, such as buses, trams, and the metro, to lessen the number of cars on the road. To further reduce air pollution, local authorities must exercise better control over industrial production processes, construction activities, and garbage burning.

According to Nguyen Hung Thinh, deputy director of the Vietnam Environment Administration under the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment (MONRE), it is crucial to perfect the system of policies to manage air quality to reduce air pollution.

Organizations causing excessive dust pollution should be thoroughly inspected and severely punished under Government’s Decree 08. Additionally, by 2030, they should encourage people to stop using conventional coal stoves by implementing hygienic waste treatment techniques.

Vietnam will receive assistance from the international JETP Partnership to meet its ambitious Net Zero 2050 goal, hasten the peaking of its greenhouse gas emissions, and make the switch from dirty to clean energy.

A bold Just Energy Transition Partnership (JETP) was approved on December 14 by leaders of Vietnam and the International Partners Group, which consists of the European Union, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, the United States, Italy, Canada, Japan, Norway, and Denmark.

For the next three to five years, the JETP will mobilize an initial $15.5 billion in public and private funding to support Viet Nam’s transition to a greener economy.

A number of challenging new goals are being persued with assistance from the Partnership by Vietnam:

Shifting the year for reducing greenhouse gas emissions from 2035 to 2030.
Lowering the peak annual emissions from the power sector by up to 30%, from 240 megatons to 170 megatons, and pushing back the peaking date by five years, to 2030.
Limiting Vietnam’s coal capacity to 30.2 gigawatts rather than the 37 gigawatts currently planned.
Accelerating the use of renewables so that, instead of the current planned 36%, renewable energy must make up at least 47% of electricity generation by 2030.

By 2035, the reduction of 500 megatons (0.15 billion tonnes) of emissions will be the result of meeting these ambitious goals.

Initial financial support for the Vietnam JETP comes in the form of pledges totaling $7.75 billion from the IPG, the Asian Development Bank, the International Finance Corporation, and the International Finance Corporation alone. The Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero (GFANZ) has pledged to work to mobilize and facilitate a matching $7.75 billion in private investment from a first group of private financial institutions.

Vietnam will develop and adopt the Viet Nam JETP Resource Mobilisation Plan over … Read more