Air pollution in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City reaches alarming levels

Many causes of air pollution

On November 14, 2024, the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment, together with the National Assembly's Committee on Science, Technology and Environment and the Hanoi People's Committee, chaired the Conference "Promoting the implementation of solutions to reduce air pollution in major cities of Vietnam".

According to the report on the development of air quality in Vietnam in recent times, the air pollution situation in two key cities of socio-economic development, Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, has tended to increase. At times, the air quality index (AQI value threshold) has reached a bad level, affecting human health and socio-economic development activities.

This situation is common in some large cities, urban areas, areas with a lot of traffic, construction, industrial and agricultural activities, especially in the Northern Delta provinces and especially in the Hanoi capital area and neighboring provinces. The main reason is that the above activities do not meet the requirements of environmental protection along with the impact of seasonal weather conditions with many unfavorable fluctuations; the difference between day and night in temperature, humidity, wind direction and speed, heat radiation, etc. in the air is very large, affecting the ability to diffuse pollutants in the air, especially PM10 dust and PM2.5 fine dust. The situation of burning waste, burning straw, agricultural by-products in the fields (open burning and scattered burning) still occurs if there are no effective measures to prevent it, increasing air pollution and smog.

Air pollution at alarming levels

At the conference, Minister of Natural Resources and Environment Do Duc Duy said that in Vietnam, air pollution has emerged as a result of socio-economic development and urbanization. However, the level of pollution has increased to an alarming level in the past 10 years, concentrated in large cities such as Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City. Although air pollution occurs seasonally and is greatly affected by climate and weather conditions, every year, pollution is concentrated from October of the previous year to March of the following year. During the day, pollution is concentrated from midnight to morning, however, monitoring data from the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment shows that air pollution has increased over time, especially when socio-economic activities have recovered after the COVID-19 pandemic.

This reality requires immediate implementation of solutions to strengthen air pollution control, minimize adverse impacts on people's health, and promote socio-economic development.

At the Conference, Mr. Nguyen Trong Dong - Vice Chairman of Hanoi People's Committee said that according to statistics, the population living in Hanoi is about 9 million people, of which the urban population accounts for over 40%. The entire city has 10 industrial parks, 1,300 craft villages, more than 7 million motorbikes and more than 600,000 cars. The city consumes an estimated 80 million kWh of electricity and millions of liters of gasoline and oil every day. Not to mention the spontaneous burning of agricultural by-products and waste that is happening regularly in the city... "these are the sources of greenhouse gas emissions that pollute the environment, especially air pollution" - Mr. Dong informed.

Faced with this situation, the Hanoi People's Committee has directed departments, sectors, and localities to implement many solutions to limit the sources of air pollutants. Typically, more than 99% of the number of honeycomb charcoal stoves has been eliminated, 80% of straw burning in the suburbs has been reduced, hundreds of manual brick kilns have been eliminated, daily waste collection and transportation has reached over 90% in all areas of the capital, and a pilot project has been implemented to measure emissions from old motorbikes and scooters in circulation in the area, as a basis for research and proposing solutions to improve air quality...