Vietnam strives hard in responding to climate change: official

Vietnam has shown strong performance in building and implementing policy actions related to climate change it committed to development partners, stated Pham Van Tan, deputy head of the Department of Climate Change under the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment.

Vietnam has worked hard to finish all committed actions related to climate change. (Representative photo)
Vietnam has worked hard to finish all committed actions related to climate change. (Representative photo)

Tan made the statement at a plenary meeting of the Support Programme to Respond to Climate Change (SP-RCC) in Hanoi on October 18 to review the monitoring of policy framework supporting climate change response in 2016, 2017 and 2018, as well as to seek ways to overcome difficulties in the future.

He noted that 24 policy actions were launched in 2016, and 25 in 2017. In 2018, 12 out of the 29 actions have been completed. Ministries, sectors and relevant agencies have also worked hard to finish all committed actions.

Regarding difficulties arising in the implementation process, Tan pointed to changes of laws as well as functions, tasks, authority and organisation of relevant agencies.

Representatives from donors such as the French Development Agency, the Japan International Cooperation Agency and the World Bank recognised efforts of Vietnam in policy actions in the policy frameworks of 2016, 2017 and 2018.

They asked Vietnamese ministries and sectors to continue supervising the process and give evaluations in the future to finish the actions underway, thus completing all set targets.

Deputy Minister of Natural Resources and Environment Le Cong Thanh proposed that after the development partners finalise the memoranda of understanding, the SP-RCC coordination committee should send them to relevant agencies for better supervision.

After the meeting, the Department of Climate Change should summarise all evaluations and submit a report to leading officials of the ministry, thus soon issuing a draft report on progress of the implementation of the policy framework to be sent to the Prime Minister.

Over the past years, the SP-RCC has made important contributions to the building and completion of Vietnam’s legal system on climate change. However, in the context that the world has approved the Paris Agreement on Climate Change and Vietnam has become a middle-income country and planned to implement the deal in 2030, the programme should be adjusted to become more suitable to the country.

According to Deputy Minister Thanh, the ministry will make proposals on changes of the programme in its report to the PM.

He also asked development partners and ministries to continue coordinating and supporting each other in implementing the programme.