“I feel self-pity and lonely because not many people are interested in environmentalism. It is one of the three key pillars for sustainable development,” said Minister of Natural Resources and Environment Pham Khoi Nguyen at the expanded cabinet meeting last week.
He said that after many years he again saw provincial officials paid attention to and discussed environmental issues “enthusiastically.”
In the two-day meeting, many chairmen talked about climate change and environmental pollution besides complaints of lacking capital, difficulties in site clearance and planning issues.
In meetings between Government and provincial officials in late 2007 and 2008, the most popular phrases were “capital investment, infrastructure construction and industrial zones.” Even draft resolutions on annual tasks had several lines about the environment.
National Assembly Deputy Duong Trung Quoc complained several times that government leaders were still “cold” to climate change while its dark shadow has become more clear in Vietnam through severe cold spells or hot weather in the north, floods in the central region and high flood tides in the south.
In the fifth National Assembly session, held in November 2009, many people tried to convene congressmen to approve a bill that would allow a project’s environmental impact to be considered after the project is approved.
After the Vedan case on the Thi Vai river was brought to light and the people sued, environmental pollution has become a hot topic in National Assembly sessions.
The public was then stirred up by warnings about the consequences that future generations would suffer if we continue neglecting the environment to focus on fast development. Even the Ministers of the Natural Resources and Environment and Planning and Investment explained that current environmental consequences are left by history.
“Up to 80 percent of enterprises use technologies of the 1980s. Of 2000 craft villages, up to 1400 are polluted. In 20 years of GDP growth, without environmental protection, for each one percent growth of GDP we gain, we will lose 3 percent,” Minister Pham Khoi Nguyen argued before the National Assembly.
Nguyen hoped that changing local officials’ attitudes would be a good signal for 2010 and that many environmental issues would be solved.
The state budget set for environmental issues in 2010 rises by 2 trillion dong ($111.1 million) from 4 trillion dong to 6 trillion dong. 2010 will also be the first year that the MoNRE will check all major rivers and 100 industrial zones located on riverbanks downstream.