ME/IE 8773-8774
ENERGY AND ENVIRONMENT IN THE DEVELOPING
COUNTRIES
by
Nguyen Tho Nhan, Ph.D.
20 Rue d'Arcueil
Paris 75014, FRANCE
Wednesday, May 19 1999
1:25 - 2:15 p.m.
Room 102 ME
Broadcast on UNITE Channel B
Coffee will be available in 152 ME following the seminar
The protection of the environment is rightly
considered one of the most important issues of the 21st Century
and the scientific community has been very active in this field
for many decades. However, we are still witnessing an accelerated
pace of degradation of the environment despite all the efforts
made and it is be feared that we may leave future generations
a world so polluted that the very existence of mankind is at menaced.
In the fight against pollution, scientists and
engineers in industrialized countries first concentrated their
efforts in solving problems faced by their cities, their regions
and the fall-out of these efforts hardly reached developing nations
due to many reasons. If industrialized countries finally fail
to share their achievements in this field with the developing
world, their efforts and innovations will have a limited effect.
Failing to achieve adequate environmental protection
in developing countries will lead to adverse consequences in industrialized
nations because environmental problems are not only local but
also global. For example, global warming caused by carbon dioxide
emission is on everyoneÕs mind today.
Although developing countries vary tremendously,
they all share some characteristics in the field of energy development
and environmental protection. Some 140 developing countries listed
by the United Nations system are classified into high, middle,
and low income categories. The yearly income per capita varies
from less that 200$ for the lowest to 20,000$ for the highest.
But in the majority of developing countries, a marked socio-economic
characteristic prevails, it is the duality of societies: a wealthy
minority lives in big, polluted cities with all the material conveniences
that exist in industrialized countries while poor rural masses
are struggling for everyday survival in the barren countryside.
Therefore, in these two difference worlds, the problem of environmental
protection appears and is understood differently. Since energy
is considered as the main source of environmental pollution and
there exist different patterns of energy production, transportation
and use in urban and rural areas, treatments to reduce their level
of environmental degradation must also be different. It is well
known that energy in all its phases: exploitation, transformation
and end-use is closely connected to the environment since energy
is initially extracted form the environment, transformed, used
and finally rejected to the environment as degraded forms of heat
and waste.
The major areas of concern in environmental control
energy can be identified as the original are:
major environmental accidents
water pollution
maritime pollution
land use and siting impact
radiation and radioactivity
solid waste disposal · hazardous air pollutants
ambient air quality
acid deposition
stratospheric ozone depletion
global climate change
Informal Luncheon: Wednesday,
May 19, 1999, 11:45 am, Room 404, Campus Club. Dr. Nhan will be
able to attend.
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