Da Nang is highly appreciated by many local residents, tourists and organisations at home and abroad for its air quality. The city is determined to protect the air environment and reduce carbon emissions, aiming towards an ecological urban area and joining hands with other Vietnamese cities and provinces to implement the whole country’s strong commitment to net emissions of “0” (Net Zero) by 2050.

Da Nang is implementing a programme to control motorbike emissions to reduce air pollution. Photo: HOANG HIEP

According to Deputy Director of the Da Nang Department of Natural Resources and the Environment Dang Quang Vinh, Da Nang not only focuses on developing towards becoming a major socio-economic centre, but also pays special attention to implementing the goals and tasks of the project ‘Building Da Nang into an Environmentally-friendly City’.

Over many years of implementing this project, Da Nang has been recognised, highly appreciated by the general public and awarded many environmental and urban awards by the national ministries, concern agencies and organisations, and the international community such as Environmentally Sustainable Cities (ESC) Award (ASEAN), APEC Low Carbon Model Town (LCMT) and National Green City.

For the past two consecutive years, Da Nang has been ranked by the Vietnamese Ministry of Natural Resources and the Environment as the leading locality in terms of the results of implementing the set of indicators to assess environmental protection activities. 

Since 2008, solutions to manage air quality have achieved initial results such as according to the results of periodic monitoring, the noise level in residential areas were always lower than 60 dB(A), and that recorded on streets was lower than 75 dB(A). The average area of urban green space per person reached the target with in 7.51m²/person in 2022, an increase of 5.51m²/person compared to 2015.

The rate of establishments and concentrated production and business service areas installing automatic and continuous emission monitoring systems and transmitting data directly to the Da Nang Department of Natural Resources and the Environment as prescribed reached 57.14%.

In the project ‘Building Da Nang into Environmentally-friendly City’ for the 2021 - 2030 period, the city has proposed measures to manage and ensure air quality.

However, in addition to the cited achievements, the city is facing challenges and difficulties such as the lack of legal documents, mechanisms and policies for air quality management to clarify the importance, roadmap, goals and specific methods; the increasing trend of old motorbikes and motorbikes that are not regularly maintained, causing a large increase in emissions.

There have been no regulations on controlling emissions of motorbikes in circulation. Dust, odors, and noise from small-scale production activities in residential areas have not been effectively and thoroughly handled.

Mr. Dang Quang Vinh also said that the Da Nang Department of Natural Resources and the Environment is consulting on the development of a plan to manage air quality in Da Nang to submit to the municipal People's Committee for promulgation, in order to implement synchronously and raise awareness and responsibility of all levels, sectors, organisations and individuals on air quality management, contributing to reducing air pollution and enhancing people’s quality of life.

In the immediate future, raising awareness, capacity and positively changing the behaviour of each citizen and business to reduce air pollution and protecting the air environment is very necessary to contribute to effectively implementing the goal of environmental protection, meeting the orientation of building eco-urban areas.

Along with highly-practical activities to protect the air environment and minimise air pollution, reducing greenhouse gas emissions (CO2, CH4, N2O...) is important to control and reduce the increase in the Earth's surface temperature, ease the impacts of climate change, and protect the ozone layer.

Da Nang is determined to maintain the title of ‘Low Carbon City’ and implement solutions to reduce carbon emissions. In the immediate future, inventorying greenhouse gases in economic and social activities is very important, especially industrial production activities, to determine the emission level, the absorption level of greenhouse gases, thereby identifying plans and solutions to control or reduce emissions.

According to Deputy Director of the Da Nang Department of Science and Technology Duong Hoang Van Ban, greenhouse gas inventory activities are very important.

Sectors that have to reduce greenhouse gas emissions such as industry and trade, natural resources and environment, construction, transportation and agriculture have been developing plans to reduce greenhouse gas emissions at the sectoral level, assessing and measuring greenhouse gas emissions of enterprises and establishments so as to attach corporate responsibility for emission reduction.

Implementing Decree No. 06/2022/ND-CP of the national government on greenhouse gas emission mitigation and ozone layer protection, enterprises must inventory greenhouse gases (CO2, CH4, N2O...) at the grassroots level in 2024.

The Da Nang Department of Science and Technology has been guiding and training enterprises on general awareness and greenhouse gas inventory techniques according to ISO 14064-1:2018 standards and developing greenhouse gas inventory reports.

Enterprises shall have solutions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, serve growth, and ensure productivity and sustainable employment.

Reporting by HOANG HIEP - Translating by A.THU, V.DUNG