Vietnam to pour over VND 2.3 trillion into climate change

Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung has approved a budget of more than VND 2.3 trillion for a national programme to cope with climate change from 2009 to 2015.The budget, expected to come from non-refundable aid and long-term soft loans, will support the programme implementers to assess levels of climate change impacts on sectors, branches and localities.Such assessments will then serve as grounds for the creation of an effective action plan in the field, said the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development.Studies indicate that Vietnam is one of the five countries in the world that are most vulnerable to climate change. If sea level is supposed to rise one metre, around 5 percent of Vietnam’s land would be adversely affected, causing difficulty for around 11 percent of the nation’s population, and reducing 7 percent of farm output and 10 percent of GDP.Realising those threats, the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment has asked the agricultural sector to promptly figure out climate change impacts on specific crops, even on the plants that can greatly benefit from climate change, in order to formulate long-term development strategies.At a recent seminar on climate change impacts on farming and food security, Dr. Nguyen Huu Ninh, President of the Civil Society Network on Climate Change, said human actions are very the cause of climate change, meaning a 90 percent probability and only humans can do to mitigate those changes.