Vietnam to Set up Climate Change Department

The Vietnamese Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment are speeding up procedures to establish the Department of Climate Change in a move to better cope with its impacts. The setup aims to assist the Department of Meteorology, Hydrology and Climate Change in better fulfilling its tasks. Climate change is not only just scientific and technical issues that have become technical and economics, political, social, diplomatic and inter-branch, inter-regional or even transnational maters. Thus, managing such a large area needs an independent agency, the ministry said. The establishment is needed to better manage the response activities, and work out policies to enhance the research and monitoring of climate change and enlist international support. The impacts of climate change is showing its clear signs across Vietnam, including the recent increase in atmospheric temperatures, sea level, droughts, floods, unseasonable storm, which will seriously damage agricultural production, its related processing industries, as well as sea, island areas and ecology, experts said. Vietnam is listed among five hardest-hit countries by climate change. If sea level rises one meter, 5% of Vietnam’s land, 11% of its population and 7% of its agricultural land would be affected with the losses estimated at 10% of GDP. The World Bank estimated that Vietnam will need some $850 million per year for climate change projects from now to 2050. The government has so far mobilized more than $1.2 billion in aid from the international community in efforts to tackle climate change. (Ha Noi Moi – New Hanoi Sept 26 p4, Tuoi Tre – Youth Sept 26 p2)