PANO – This is the theme of a workshop opened in Hanoi on August 17^th by United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment. The event attracted the participation of Dr. Rajendra K Pachauri, the Chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Vietnamese and international experts.

The workshop disseminated the main findings of the Special Report on Managing Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation (SREX) recently launched by IPCC, discussed the implications for Vietnam of global climatic extremes resulted from climate change, changes in climatic extremes in Vietnam and its responses to climate change in the context of a changing climatic extremes in Vietnam.

Dr. Rajendra K Pachauri, the Chairman of IPCC, said that changing climate leads to changes in extreme weather and climate events. Climate change has bad impacts on agricultural production, water resources, livelihoods, human health and sea water level. Recent studies in Vietnam also show that extensive disasters negatively affect children’s education, health and access to water and sanitation.

Also at the workshop, Dr. Joern Birkmann, the IPCC Lead-Author in the IPCC’s Special Report, “Managing Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation”, said that the national level plays a key role in governing and controlling disasters. Besides, developing strategies for disaster risk management in the context of climate change requires range of approaches, informed by and customized to specific local circumstances.

In Vietnam, annual average temperature has increased by 0.5⁰C over the past 50 years. Sequence of strong flood occurred in Mekong River in 2000, 2001 and 2002 and the crest of flood water at Tan Chau was over 4.5 m indicate the increase of hydrological extremes in Vietnam. Besides, despite maximum rainfall increases in some areas and drought has become worse in several places.

Over the past years, Vietnam has issued many policies and carried out programs to respond to climate change in the context of changing climatic extremes. Vietnam also worked with international community in all aspects of responding to climate change. These policies and programs have partly helped improve people’s awareness of climate change and enhance capacity in researches to respond to climate change.

At the workshop, participants also discussed measures to cope with climate change and climate extremes while ensuring socio-economic development.  

 Tran Hoai – Viet Cuong