At that time of the morning and after work hours, roads are busy with fast-moving rush-hour traffic. Your senses are filled with traffic noises and the heat and dust rising from the vehicles. According to Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPPC), transport contributes approximately 14 per cent of the global greenhouse gas emission making transportation as one of the biggest pollutants that contributes both to climate change and air pollution.

Promoting green mobility

There is a great demand for interventions to reduce air pollution in the cities where polluting fuels and vehicles are used extensively by developing more sustainable transport. We at UNDP Viet Nam have taken actions and partnered with an e-mobility company, MBI Viet Nam to foster green transportation and cleaner air quality through the Green E-Transportation Initiative. The Green E-Transportation Initiative is a public-private initiative and jointly planned and implemented by UNDP, MBI Viet Nam, Ecopark, Ecotek, and Hue city. It is a sub-initiative of the Climate Business Index which is jointly run by the Ministry of Planning and Investment and UNDP.

The objective of the Green E-Transportation Initiative is to promote green mobility to reduce air pollution and health risks resulting from pollution. We engage in the initiative by implementing specific activities such as organization of an online campaign to raise awareness on air pollution and climate change, and with support from UNDP Global Singapore centre’s e-mobility experts, an analysis report on how electric mobility and electric bike sharing scheme can make a significant contribution to the clean air and clean environment will be conducted based on the shared data. In addition, we will provide policy recommendations and encourage key stakeholders for active actions by sharing the results through public conferences with ministries, research institutes, international organizations, enterprises, NGOs and CSOs.

Pilot testing of the e-bike sharing system

The Green E-Transportation Initiative was successfully launched on Saturday 5 September 2020 in Ecopark. The launching event marked an important milestone of putting words into action to fight climate change and environmental pollution, contributing to the reduction of health risks. It also marked the starting date for the pilot testing of an e-bike sharing scheme, which will be conducted in Ecopark over the next couple of months with approximately 500 e-bikes, 50 stations, and one operation centre. Watch footage from the event here.

The impressive results from the pilot testing have been a positive surprise, and it is clear the Green E-Transportation Initiative will be further expanded, with an aim to spread the e-bike sharing system to multiple cities across Viet Nam. This will firstly take place in Hue where the e-mobility system will be expanded in collaboration with MBI Viet Nam and city of Hue. Also, we are currently under discussions with some universities, companies, and Ministry of Transport to expand the initiative even further.

Conclusion

In addition to our actions on the Green E-Transportation Initiative, it is good to keep in mind that transformation towards greener and smarter transport requires joint efforts and contributions from all stakeholders and every citizen. The Government need to accelerate the development of legal framework and policies to ensure enabling environment for the greener transport sector. This will not only contribute to the achievement of the climate targets in the Viet Nam’s NDC, but also create new business opportunities and more sustainable options for consumers.