Air Pollution in Vietnam Essay Example

ever-growing toxic levels. In particular, dilapidated and out of using date facilities are still in traffic, they are not only threatening the safety of lives for people in traffic but also seriously affecting the quality of urban air, threatening the health and lives of people. Vietnam is ranked No.4 in the world in the number of motorcycles used as the transportation means. As statistics from 2013 to 7/2016, there are all over the country of 52 million motorcycles and 2 million cars. However, those are the registered vehicles, while the unregistered vehicles are not mentioned. That means the toxic emissions from vehicles considered as key factors in Vietnam are very horrible and much different from the developing countries in the world. A different calculation in two biggest cities such as Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City showed that, motorcycles are about 95% of total vehicles, they use 56% of gasoline consumption but discharge 94% of unburt hydrogen carbon emissions (HC); 87% of carbon monoxide (CO); 57% of nitrogen oxides (NOx)… in total emissions of vehicles (Tuan Anh Hoang, Nam Xuan Chu, Tuan Anh Truong, February 2017). Second, agricultural activities are considered as the second factor which causes air pollution. Rinkesh identifies that “Ammonia is a very common by product from agriculture-related activities and is one of the most hazardous gases in the atmosphere. Use of insecticides, pesticides, and fertilizers in agricultural activities has grown quite a lot. They emit harmful chemicals into the air and can also cause water pollution. Additionally, air pollution may arise from exhaust from factories and industries. Rinkesh again explains “ Manufacturing industries release a large amount of carbon monoxide, hydrocarbons,

organic compounds, and chemicals into the air thereby depleting the quality of air. Manufacturing industries can be found at every corner of the earth and there is no area that has not been affected by it. Petroleum refineries also release hydrocarbons and various other chemicals that pollute the air and also cause land pollution.”

Several related problems can be anticipated when air pollution increases uncontrollably. Firstly, air pollution is known to create several respiratory and heart conditions along with cancer, among other threats to the body. According to Conserve Energy Future, several million are known to have died due to direct or indirect effects of air pollution. Children in areas exposed to air pollutants are said to commonly suffer from pneumonia and asthma. New data from the World Health Organization (WHO) find that more than 60 000 deaths from heart disease, stroke, lung cancer, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and pneumonia in Viet Nam in 2016 were linked to air pollution. Secondly, another direct effect is the immediate alterations that the world is witnessing due to global warming. “With increased temperatures worldwide, increase in sea levels and melting of ice from colder regions and icebergs, displacement and loss of habitat have already signaled an impending disaster if actions for preservation and normalization are not undertaken soon.” (conserve-energy-future.com). Thirdly, it also is main factor which causes acid rain. Rinkesh identifies “ Harmful gases like nitrogen oxides and sulfur oxides are released into the atmosphere during the burning of fossil fuels. When it rains, the water droplets combine with these air pollutants, becomes acidic and then falls on the ground in the form of acid rain. Acid rain can

cause great damage to human, animals, and crops”. Last but not least, air pollution has strong influence on depletion of the ozone layer. Ozone exists in the Earth’s stratosphere and has significant responsibility to protect humans from harmful ultraviolet (UV) rays. Earth’s ozone layer is depleting by the time due to the presence of chlorofluorocarbons, hydrochlorofluorocarbons in the atmosphere. As the ozone layer will go thin, it will emit harmful rays back on earth and can cause a number of skin and eye related problems. UV rays also are able to affect crops.

In order to holistically address aforementioned problem, drastic measures are needed. In the foreseeable future, government should encourage people to use more and more public modes of transportation to reduce air pollution. Also, people should try to make use of carpooling. It is not only beneficial for the environment, it also helps people to save money. Moreover, more needs to be done to boost people to take public transport. For example, Customer News argues that “By completing the metro and then building a network on bus rapid transit (BRT) systems – with dedicated enforced lanes that ferry passengers along much faster than the normal traffic. BRT systems are much cheaper and easier to build than metros and could be scaled up very quickly. This should be coupled with dissuading the purchase of new polluting vehicles – such as through a tax on petrol cars but exclusion for electric cars. Tackling agricultural and municipal open burning can be done through enabling a network of waste-to-energy plants. GGGI has worked with the private sector on just this; with the waste-to-energy plant having already broken ground

in the northern province of Bac Ninh – this will use the latest technology to recycle, reduce and then generate electricity from trash. For generating electricity from agriculture waste, GGGI’s analysis has shown that the biomass feed-in-tariff is currently too low to stimulate demand, so it is great that the government are looking to increase this in 2019, hopefully to the level GGGI has recommended at 9.35 US cents per kWh.” In the long term, Vietnamese people should emphasis on clean energy resources. Clean energy technologies such as solar, wind and geothermal are on high these days. Governments of a number of countries have been providing grants to consumers who are interested in installing solar panels for their home. This method will go a long way to curb air pollution. Finally, Vietnamese government have to promote the environmental dissemination and education in the whole society in order to create changes and raise awareness, consciously abide by environmental laws, social responsibility of citizens, businesses in preserving and protecting the environment; building ecological awareness, make people aware of a self-conscious of the position and role, intimate relationship between nature - man - society.

In conclusion, with speed of economy developing, air pollution also rises considerably in Vietnam. There are various factors which have direct consequences or undirect consequences on the environment and people health such as the burning of fossil fuels, agricultural activities, exhaust from factories and industries,… Air pollution is known as a main aspect which lead to global warming, acid rain, ozone layer depletion, ecological imbalance, …. In addition to above solutions, the most important part which can make significant changes for the environment is that

Vietnamese peoples need to raise their awareness about the consequences of environmental pollution so that jointly contribute to reduces and remedy the air pollution and improve the quality of life. Moreover, this situation also calls for a strong action of Vietnamese government like impose strict laws for protecting the environment, high taxes on production activities that adversely affect the environment, … If the above solutions could not be done, Vietnamese have had faced with variety unexpected consequences, especially people`s health and the economy.