The initiative, organised by the United Nations, aims to project the voice of ordinary people concerning climate change and energy issues to policymakers, who, in turn, will engage in international negotiations regarding future environmental concerns and other issues at the upcoming UN Climate Change Conference, COP21, held in Paris, France in December.
According to the WWViews’s coordinators, the key to the initiative is to have citizens at multiple sites debate the same policy-related questions relating to a given issue on the same day. The requirement is to have 100 voters participating at each site, selected to reflect the demographic diversity in their country or region with regards to age, gender, occupation, education, geographical zone of residency, and membership of environmental organisations.
The event in Hanoi was co-organised by the Danish Embassy in Vietnam in collaboration with the French Ministry of Ecology, Sustainable Development and Energy, and the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF).
Vietnamese participants’ opinions revolved around a range of subjects including the importance of dealing with global climate change, measures to address the issue, and the outlook of Vietnamese citizens on sustainable energies.
At the event, Remi Genevey, Vietnam Director of the French Agency for Development, said during the 2006-2014 period, his agency granted Vietnam more than EUR471 million to launch climate change projects and supported the country in reforming relevant policies and establishing the legal framework related to climate change response and low-carbon growth.
According to Lone Boge Jensen, Political Counsellor at the Danish Embassy in Hanoi, Denmark was the first country to back Vietnam’s programme dealing with environmental challenges in 2009-2015.
