The World Bank (WB) in collaboration with authorities in Vietnam’s southern city of Can Tho held a conference on Feb 8 to outline measures to deal with the negative impacts of climate change in the coming years. Local authorities should combine environmental observation works with activities for environment protection and sustainable development, experts said. They recommended Can Tho to evaluate the changes in environmental quality in major observation areas for the state management on environmental protection, to issue timely warnings against the risk of environmental pollution and degradation, as well as to build a database on environmental quality for exchanging information across the country. The city’s urban development plan to 2030, including transport development, must take climate change into account, participants attributed. They urged the city to encourage businesses, production units and craft villages to apply eco-friendly technologies which help ease the pollution and harmful gas emission, adding that it should focus on improving the public awareness of climate change and its impact on the economy, society and environment. In a bid to cope with the issue, the participants also urged to help local residents stabilize their lives in flood seasons and support localities with hydrometeorology forecasting to mitigate natural disasters. Since 1996, floods in Can Tho have claimed 123 people, destroyed 365,000 houses, 1,597 schools, and 7,000 km of roads, and inundated 104,000 hectares of crops. By 2100, climate change will significantly change the natural and socio-economic environment in the Mekong Delta region, including Can Tho. If the city does not actively address this issue, it will be flooded by more than 1m, losing a large amount of agricultural land, scientists warned. Water levels in the Mekong River will fall by 2%-4% in the dry season and rise by 7%-15% in the flood season, exacerbating floods and droughts. Declining water resources will seriously affect agricultural production, fishery, transport and public health, which will threat livelihoods of millions of local people. (vov.vn Feb 8, vietnamplus.vn Feb 8)
