Print

(VietNamNet Bridge)-The People's Committee of southern Dong Nai Province on Wednesday decided to relocate 579 facilities this year, claiming they were hostile to the environment. They include many pottery factories, slaughter houses and livestock farms that are thought to be polluting their surroundings.

* 20% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions to be targeted

Viet Nam will attempt to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 20 per cent in the agriculture and forestry sectors by 2020, according to a plan being developed by the Ministry of National Resources and Environment.

Experts at a conference yesterday in Ha Noi discussed the plan, which is expected to cost VND208 billion (US$9.9 million) and has adopted 2005 as the base year for comparisons.

"The draft plan will be completed by the end of this month and then submitted to the Government for approval," said Tran Hong Ha, Deputy Minister of National Resources and Environment.

According to the Department of Meteorology, Hydrology and Climate Change, several sectors continue to emit large amounts of green house gases in Viet Nam, including energy, agriculture and forestry.

The measures proposed to reduce these harmful effects included developing biogas technology, changing the diet of livestock, collecting and recycling agricultural by-products and using water-saving rice cultivation methods.

Many of the potential solutions involve the application of modern technologies to promote efficiency and the increased use of renewable energy and fossil fuels.

The plan would also address the management of carbon credit, which is a generic term for any tradable certificate or permit representing the right to emit one tonne of carbon dioxide or one tonne of another greenhouse gas with a carbon dioxide equivalent (tCO2e), according to the Department of Meteorology, Hydrology and Climate Change.

In other words, a carbon credit is a certificate showing that a government or company has paid to have a certain amount of carbon dioxide removed from the environment.

The plan would aim to increase control over carbon credit trading activities, to develop the carbon market within the country and to promote Viet Nam's participation in the international carbon market.

The department also said that as of April this year, there were 112 projects in Viet Nam recognised by the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) Executive Board as CDM projects. They will help reduce the total amount of greenhouse gas emissions by an estimated 51 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalents.

According to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the Clean Development Mechanism allows a country with an emission-reduction or emission-limitation commitment under the Kyoto Protocol to implement an emission-reduction project in developing countries.

In this way, the developed country would be given credits for meeting its emission reduction targets, while the developing country would receive the capital investment and clean technology or beneficial change in land use.

Viet Nam ranked fifth among countries with the largest number of CDM projects.