Awareness Of Climate Change

HCM City must be steadfast in the determination to relocate polluters in the inner city to avert the effects of climate change

It was almost nine o’clock last Wednesday morning, but the sky was bleak and still shrouded by a thin mist. A gentle rain then unexpectedly came down. Taking the motorbike for a customer, the security guard in front of a bank on Nguyen Van Linh Parkway in HCM City’s District 7 sighed, “Oh well, we can’t predict what the weather will be like nowadays. Saigon used to have two seasons in a year, the dry and the rainy ones. But it doesn’t anymore. Everything’s changed because of climate change!”

Spring rains and mist are expected in HCM City. To some, very fine showers in the springtime are even a source of inspiration for poetic creativity. Explaining misty mornings this past week, meteorologists said that the misty weather is an annual phenomenon in the dry season in HCM City. They predicted that the city would have more mist and colder temperature in the sunny season this year.

So, mist and rains in the dry season are usual weather patterns in Saigon. But the security guard’s blame on climate change for the precariousness of the weather may be justifiable as well.

Believe it or not, the environment in this southern city has deteriorated over the years despite efforts made by authorities and communities to reverse the bad situation. Access http://hepa.gov.vn, the official website of the HCM City Environmental Protection Agency, and you’ll find some statistics backing this argument.

Measurements taken in November this year indicate that air pollution in general was worse than that in October. For instance, 90% of the measurements of the dirt content were below par, ranging from 0.43 to 0.91mg/m3, or 1.4-2.7 times higher than the national standard.

Noise pollution is also worrisome. Almost nine out of ten measurements were higher than the permitted level, ranging from 66 to 85dB. For your reference, humans feel comfortable if the noise surrounding them is from 40 to 60dB, and can tolerate for a short while noise whose intensity is from 60 to 80dB. However, if noise exceeds the 80dB level, it will adversely affect human health and hearing ability.

What’s more, organic, biological and oil contamination in the Dong Nai River, the main source of water supply for HCM City and the neighboring provinces, was ever higher.

Environmental protection in HCM City, hamstrung by a lack of the local residents’ awareness, remains a thorny issue. But public awareness of environmental protection and climate change is being raised among the local communities. What the security guard said at the beginning of this article can be seen as an encouraging sign.
In a late October working session between members of the HCM City People’s Council and the municipal Department of Natural Resources and Environment, delegates pointed out three vexing problems for the environment. Council members cited relocation of polluting factories in the inner city, contaminated canals and arroyos and untreated wastewater discharged by hospitals. They are all old issues which have dragged on for years, though.

These problems should have been radically tackled. In the meeting, Truong Trong Nghia, vice chairman of the Economic-Budgetary Committee of the People’s Council, was quoted by the local press as saying that seven polluting businesses in the relocation program which started in 2003 were still in place in residential quarters. Worse, these big manufacturing polluters are either state-owned or have a state stake. Over the past seven years, they have been there and have polluted the city unpunished!

When it was first launched in 2007, the Department of Environmental Police under the Ministry of Public Security was expected to minimize pollution in Vietnam. In fact, environmental police have done their job. A speaker at the meeting, Nguyen Quoc Hung, head of the environmental police in HCM City, said since June 2009, environmental police officers under his supervision had fined 155 polluting businesses. The polluters had to pay VND3.2 billion for their violations. However, as the fines were way too modest relative to the costs of installing treating facilities, polluting entities have opted for paying fines rather than buying treatment equipment.

In protecting the city’s living environment, who should lead the way? Authorities or the public? Whoever does that should pay attention to the following fact. Environmental experts have pointed out that HCM City is among the 10 cities in the world which are most affected by climate change.

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Watch Your Feet! Flowers Are Out There!

Greener sidewalk makes a freener city

The green sidewalk endeavor in HCM City should attract community participation to last long and take full effect

A group of foreign tourists is strolling on the sidewalk along the Unification Palace on Nam Ky Khoi Nghia in District 1, HCM City. While the sun is shining brightly over their heads, their feet glide past green leaves and colorful flowers of low bushes in flower beds along the curbside.

Those flower beds which have been around for over a year now are part of an initiative referred locally as “va hè xanh” which literally means green sidewalk. The main idea relates to providing the sidewalk in the inner city with more green coverage.

Years ago, the municipal authorities kicked off their effort to give a facelift to the cityscape by renovating the sidewalk in the inner city. Different materials have been used, from concrete surface to zigzag-patterned paving tiles, a failed emulation of what has been applied successfully in the neighboring Thailand.

The latest option, hard surface concrete floor tiles, seems to be the top choice of authorities. However, according to specialists and scientists, the hardened surface of the sidewalk is working at the expense of the absorbency of the local terrain. In other words, the completely paved sidewalk in the inner city has aggravated flooding when heavy rains come or at high tide.

Meanwhile, the inner Saigon is desperately short of green trees. In line with plans, the per capita area of green trees in this city should have been between six and seven square meters by 2010. What’s more, experts say that in a year the inner city proper whose supposed population is 3 million people would dispose of more than 1 million tons of carbon dioxide, 2,500 tons of dust and 160,000 tons of toxic gas. To neutralize these harmful substances, it requires 25 square meters of green trees per people. Much to the disappointment of those concerned, the current figure is less than one square meters per head.

Finally, an old concept came to life again. In addition to existing lines of wood trees, rows of flower beds where herbs and grass are planted should be in place. The sidewalk will then be adorned with the combination of high trees and low herbs.

As soon as the initiative in making the sidewalk greener was endorsed, all the plans to completely harden the surface have been halted. Instead, a sidewalk which is at least three meters wide is subject to the “green program.” A section of the sidewalk ranging from one meter to 2.5 meters is used as pedestrians’ walkway; the rest, from the curb to the walkway, will be for flower beds. Particular, wherever possible, creepers are grown along walls or fences.

Aside from increasing water absorbency, the green sidewalk also lessens what experts dub the “fireball” effect in which concrete or asphalt surface adds up to the increased heat in quarters with high density of construction.
Although the area of the “green sidewalk” which has been implemented remains modest in comparison with the total natural area of the inner city, it is still significant in that it conforms to the notion of a livable city where green foliage is underscored.

In this regard, there have been worrying signs. In various places, sidewalk flower beds were poorly protected. They are occupied for other purposes—a gathering point for chatting friends or a temporary storage for hawkers. As a result, flowers and herbs were destroyed, leaving ugly scenes.

An essential way to strengthen water absorbency and reduce heat, greener sidewalk will enable the cityscape to look nicer and friendlier, both to local inhabitants and visitors. What this campaign for green sidewalk is still lacking may be measures to attract the participation of communities. Without that public support, the “green sidewalk,” first initiated by the authorities, would not last long and take full effect.

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