Hanoi (VNA)🐼 - From now to 2030, Vietnam will take proactive moves to prevent and control environmental pollution and degradation, not pursue pure economic growth at the expense of the environment, and promote a green, circular and low-carbon economy in efforts to achieve net zero emissions by 2050, Deputy Minister of Natural Resources and Environment Le Cong Thanh told VietnamPlus.

Limiting adverse impact on environment

Thanh stressed that to protect the environment in a changing international and domestic situation, the national master plan on environmental protection for the 2021 - 2030 period, with a vision to 2050, specifies viewpoints of preventing environmental problems at an early date and from afar; preventing, controlling, and addressing pollution; improving environmental quality; and protecting environmentally sensitive areas so as to limit adverse impact on the nature and human health. The plan also aims to contain biodiversity loss and boost biodiversity quality; establish conservation areas; set up national, regional and provincial-level concentrated waste treatment zones; build national and provincial-level environment monitoring and warning networks; and obtain sustainable socioeconomic development with a green, circular, and low carbon economy harmonious with nature and friendly to the environment. Nguyen Thuong Hien, deputy head of the ministry’s Environment Department, said the master plan specifies objectives for four groups of issues. The first group focuses on zoning environmental areas based on their vulneralbility to pollution in order to minimise adverse impacts on the life and normal development of humans and species. The second is on the conservation of natural values and biodiversity to recover and maintain natural ecosystems while curbing biodiversity loss. The third is about the establishment of at least two national-level concentrated waste treatment areas, along with at least seven others at the regional level and one in each province or centrally-run city by 2030. The fourth is on the establishment of a national environment monitoring network that must be connected with provincial monitoring systems, the official added.

Boosting sustainable growth models

At a conference held on November 15 to publicise the national master plan for environmental protection in the 2021-2030 period with a vision to 2050, Deputy Minister Thanh said the scheme outlines important tasks, including preventing and reducing impact from socioeconomic development activities on the environment; managing solid waste from daily life activities and industrial production as well as toxic waste; managing and improving the quality of the environment; preserving the nature and biodiversity; and boosting sustainable growth models. Currently the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment is collecting feedback from other ministries, sectors, and localities on a draft action programme for implementing the master plan, Thanh said. Besides, the ministry has proposed diverse funding sources be mobilised for the implementation of the tasks set and projects under the master plan, including those from the State coffer and other legal ones. It also suggested encouraging others from the society for education and communications about environmental protection and biodiversity conservation. To achieve the above-mentioned goals and implement measures, there must be resolute involvement of ministries, sectors, localities, as well as organisations and each citizen for the goal of sustainable national development and improvement of the quality of people’s life, the official stressed./.