Tourism projects at Chan May-Lang Co Economic Zone contribute to the green economic development. Photo courtesy: Nguyen Phong
“If breathing, eating, and drinking are all dangerous, will the quality of life really increase?”, questioned the Delegate Nguyen Thi Phuc (Hung Yen province) in the National Assembly’s discussion session on the socio-economic situation on October 31st, 2019. This concerned us. Developing the economy without improving people’s quality of life is a very expensive price we have to pay because an unsustainable socio-economic development will cause serious environmental pollution and increasingly depleted resources.
Everyone is able to perceive and deal with this every day. People feel such insecure that they are “scared of whatever they eat”, then their breathing, drinking, and traveling. This is not just happening at a locality scale, yet becoming a national and global problem.
Finding the cause is not difficult. On a large scale and at the macro level, people are pursuing the economic development to meet human’s physical needs with little regard for environmental issues. This is a common story of the world as, for many years, the development of the Brown Economy, which is based on fossil resources, has increased the greenhouse gas emissions, the climate change crisis, and the energy insecurity, leading to wars and conflicts, and food insecurity...
However, depending on the awareness and development conditions, each country has different reactions; therefore, the level of negative impacts on the environment are also different. For developed countries, there was a transformation of economic model from “brown” to “green” economy several decades ago. This was considered a new model, contributing to addressing global challenges such as climate change...
In Vietnam, the National Green Growth Strategy was approved by the Government in 2012 and the Green Growth Action Plan came after in 2014. Accordingly, green growth is defined as the growth based on the process of changing the growth model, restructuring the economy in order to improve its efficiency and competitiveness, and developing a modern infrastructure system for an effective use of natural resources and climate change response to promote a sustainable economic growth.
As for Thua Thien Hue, the provincial People's Committee issued a plan to implement this national green growth strategy in 2015. The objectives of the plan include building Thua Thien Hue toward an urban of “Heritage, culture, ecology, scenery and environmental friendliness”, in which economic sectors will be developed towards greening; using energy and natural resources economically and efficiently; improving people's quality of life; and obtaining an environmentally friendly lifestyle.
These objectives are consistent in the provincial economy development in association with the model of green growth and green economy. This is reflected in many aspects, from restructuring the economy, planning the urban development, managing and utilizing resources to developing renewable energy, applying advanced production technologies, saving energy, and building models of coastal ecological economy to cope with climate change...
The most obvious one is that the provincial economic structure had a positive shift when choosing tourism-services as a key economic sector. Prioritizing the development of tourism-services means reducing the exploitation of natural resources, limiting greenhouse gas emissions, and limiting environmental pollution.
In industrial development, the viewpoint of not pursuing economic growth at the expense of the environment was adopted consistently. Refusing to grant investment licenses for thermal power plants at Chan May - Lang Co Economic Zone and Phong Chuong commune or any projects that would likely cause high risk of environmental pollution was a wise decision and not easy at all of the province.
By accepting just a few big projects, the province’s budget revenue would skyrocket, with a 1.5 times or double growth. However, the price we must pay for the environmental pollution will be difficult to measure. Dead rivers will appear. Or, thousands of and tens of thousands of people has to suffer black smoke columns every day...
Enterprises themselves were also aware of this when there was an investment shift to less polluting industries and cleaner production technologies - one of the criteria of the green economy. The TTC solar power plant project in Phong Dien is one of the pioneering projects investing in renewable energy.
Currently, the province plans to reserve nearly 600 hectares for calling investments in solar power projects in Phong Dien and Phu Loc districts. When green energy projects receive interests from investors, they will contribute to developing the local sustainable economy.
Up to present, the word “green” has been associated with most of the province’s economic activities such as green agriculture, green industry, green cities, green tourism, green environment... The provincial “greening” process was not only accompanied by international organizations, but also became the movement supported by local people while implementing the project of “Green Sunday-Take action for a greener, cleaner and more beautiful Thua Thien Hue”.
At present, the economy of Thua Thien Hue is not really developed in comparison to many other localities. Yet, making the province Green is something that few places can do. Hue may develop slowly but it will keep the treasure that many people desire and makes many localities with recent hot development to regret.
By Hoang Minh