Vietnam is making substantial efforts to fulfil its National Target Programme to Respond to Climate Change in 2015, hoping to assess the phenomenon’s impacts on each sector and locality and ultimately design a feasible action plan to counteract these effects.

Earlier this year, the Prime Minister approved the allocation of 3 trillion VND (140.6 million USD) from the State budget for climate change projects.

These projects include 16 unfinished projects under the Support Programme to Respond to Climate Change (SP-RCC) in previous years, projects on planting forest in coastal marshes and river upstream regions, and pressing projects on the SP-RCC list that have yet to commence.

The Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment plans to update climate change and rising sea level scenarios for each locality by the fourth quarter of this year, enabling ministries, sectors and localities to build effective action plans for 2016-2020.

It also highlights the need to raise climate change adaptation capacity for the Mekong Delta, considered the most vulnerable area to this phenomenon.

The National Target Programme to Respond to Climate Change was approved in 2008. Since then, Vietnam has achieved remarkable results in policymaking as well as implementing specific projects.

Thanks to Vietnam’s improved role and position through regional and international negotiations, support from the international community for the country has increased. Over the past five years, Vietnam has received over 1.3 billion USD for this essential programme.-VNA