Climate change will make environmental protection in urban areas and industrial
zones a more complicated task, especially in vulnerable coastal areas like HCM
City and the Cuu Long (Mekong) Delta provinces, a deputy minister warned.

The Sa Dec Industrial Zone in the Mekong Delta’s Dong Thap Province. Deputy Minister of Natural Resources and Environment Bui Cach Tuyen warns climate change will make environmental protection in urban areas and industrial zones a more complicated task. (Photo: VNS)

The task is already hard due to the
demands of urban and industrial development, and climate change will compound
the difficulty, Deputy Minister of Natural Resources and Environment Bui Cach
Tuyen told a conference that opened in HCM City on Thursday.

“Thus adaptation to climate change
[in urban areas and IPs] will require a framework involving multiple sectors,”
he said.

The two-day conference, held by the
National University in HCM City, has attracted more than 45 delegates from
academic and other institutions around the country.

They are discussing 61 research
works in three main areas of climate change – impact on urban life and IPs,
solid and liquid waste management and recycling, and environmental quality
management.

In the first session, they
discussed temperature changes due to the impact of urbanisation in HCM City, the
likely pollution level in 2020 in the delta’s Long An Province following the
mushrooming of industrial parks (IPs), and the sustainable consumption and
development of energy in HCM City.

The session also discussed studies
done by Thai scientists on urbanisation and carbon dioxide emissions in their
country.

The second session is dedicated to
the monitoring of hazardous gases emitted by IPs and management of the fallout
of wastewater released into river basins.

The last session will focus on
monitoring water quality in river basins with density of IPs.

Tuyen said the conference’s
conclusions will serve as a basis for adapting to climate change in HCM City,
managing the Dong Nai River, and using advanced waste-treatment systems in the
delta.

Nguyen Duc Nghia, deputy director
of the National University in HCM City, said studies on the impacts of climate
change on specific sectors and people’s lives are in an early phase and called
for close co-operation between research centres and Government agencies.

VietNamNet/Viet
Nam News