Secretary of the Hanoi municipal Party Committee Hoang Trung Hai announced Hanoi will be more determined in environmental management especially controlling wastewater discharge and construction sites in the capital city.

If Vietnam stops investments in new coal-fired thermopower projects, the total amount of coal it would consume could drop by 221 million tons by 2050.

The HCMC Department of Transport will cooperate with the Vietnam Association of Motorcycle Manufacturers to monitor motorcycle emissions in districts 1, 3 and Binh Thanh from February to November next year.

Do you wear a mask when out an about in Vietnam? Maybe you should, as the pollution builds up. 

Hanoi and HCMC both have some serious air quality issues to grapple with.

The capital Hanoi has continued facing terrible air pollution which is posing a risk to health.

Motorbike emissions are a major reason for air pollution. More seriously, old motorcycles banned from traffic are still rolling on streets.

Hybrid, PHEV and EV engines help reduce harmful emissions and save fuel, but they are not favored in Vietnam because of the lack of encouragement measures.

Air monitoring stations that warn people about air pollution can be useful, but this is not a radical solution to have a safe living environment.

Instead of works for public interest, multistory buildings in Hanoi have arisen on land where factories and administration offices were located in the past.

Saying that private vehicles are the biggest source of pollution, Hanoi’s Mayor Nguyen Duc Chung supports the policy to recall old cars and motorbikes.

Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc has asked the leaders of Hanoi to apply radical solutions to handle air pollution.

The HCMC Department of Transport is mulling over a scheme to control emissions from scooters and motorbikes on a trial basis.

The fact that air pollution alerts in HCMC are not timely made available is attributable to the Center for Environment and Natural Resources Monitoring’s use of outdated environmental monitoring devices, said Cao Tung Son, director of the center.

A Vietnamese Facebook user has apologized to AirVisual for a post that resulted in a “coordinated attack” to discredit the app after its data showed Hanoi has at times topped its list of 90 major cities suffering from air pollution.

Road transport makes up 85 percent of total emissions, an overwhelming proportion over other segments.

The coal-fired power plants in the region are believed to be a main contributor to the increased pollution in HCM City.

A separate annual world ranking elaborated by IQAir (owner of AirVisual) in partnership with Greenpeace in March showed that Hanoi was not in the world’s top 200 most polluted cities last year.

PM Nguyen Xuan Phuc has ordered the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment and the governments of Hanoi and HCMC to promptly adopt effective solutions to address the worsening air pollution, the local media reported.