Vietnamese youth take climate action towards a 'green' future

Groups of volunteers join hands to clean up trash on the islands of Ha Long Bay (Photo: Hung Vo/Vietnam+)

Hanoi (VNA) - On November 1, the Department of Climate Change under the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment in collaboration with the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) published a special report "Youth for Climate Action in Vietnam 2022"

The report was also introduced to United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres at the "Youth Policy Dialogue” during his official visit in late October.

Written by 24 young authors across the country, the report focuses on four main themes, including: Youth with climate policy and decision-making, promoting economic transformation towards an economy recirculating, reducing emissions towards “zero” net emissions, adapting to climate change and reducing disaster risk.

In particular, in this report, the authors researched more than 130 youth-initiated climate initiatives and projects. These are examples of practical climate action by youth; identifying a number of awareness activities that need to be prioritized for implementation; developing education and capacity building programs on climate change; and providing financial and technical support to youth-led projects.

At the ceremony, young people presented their statement in which they wished the Government to prioritize investment in renewable power plants, and establish a roadmap to eliminate fossil fuels usage by 2030. They also called for restricting financial institutions from investing in high emission projects, and reducing the use of single-use plastic products with the goal of eliminating these products completely by 2030.

The youth participants asked local authorities and stakeholders to call for the involvement of young people in organizing creative communication campaigns and raising awareness about climate change, encouraging green lifestyles and resilience action towards climate change.

They also requested the Government create a favorable legal framework and basis to support individuals, founders, and youth organizations to take action on climate change. This is especially important to create a favorable mechanism to empower people, and ethnic minority youth, among others.

Speaking at the announcement ceremony, Director of Climate Change Department Tang The Cuong said that climate change is happening faster than forecasted, threatening human life and causing impact on all aspects, including economic, social, political, diplomatic and security aspects of each country.

As one of the countries strongly affected by climate change and natural disasters, at the COP26 Conference, together with many countries, Vietnam made strong commitments, such as striving to achieve a net emission of equal to 0 by 2050; participating in the Global Methane Emission Reduction Commitment, and many other initiatives in the world's inevitable development trend of equitable energy transition, low emission development.

However, to achieve set targets, according to Cuong, it is necessary to have active contribution of people, community and the whole society, particularly youngsters.

Cuong emphasized that with the publication of the special report on “Youth for Climate Action in Vietnam 2022” taking place before the COP27 Conference, it’s expected that agencies and organizations will create more favorable conditions to help Vietnamese youth participate

and contribute to the national response to climate change. This will help to accelerate the realization of the goal of reaching 'zero' net emissions by 2050.

Ramla Al Khalidi, UNDP Resident Representative in Vietnam said that the organization commits to supporting Vietnamese youth, ensuring their concerns and ideas are heard, while continuing to work with young people to leverage their creativity to drive action on climate change.

Khalidi highlighted that UNDP is not only interested in the activities of the young generation, but it is also its duty to ensure that young people and future generations live in a future, which is fair, green and sustainable./.