Countless hectares of forest 
are being destroyed

23/6 Tuoi Tre: Deforestation haunts Vietnam’s Central Highlands - Countless hectares of forest in Vietnam’s Central Highlands are being destroyed as the result of industrial and agricultural activities conducted by local businesses and residents at such a rate that authorities are unable to prevent the situation.

22/6 Tuoi Tre: Illegal logging a perennial problem in Vietnam despite premier’s order - Natural forests in Vietnam continue to fall victim to illegal logging, despite orders from the prime minister to shut down access to at-risk areas last year.

11/7 2016 Thanh Nien News: Primary forest cleared illegally in Vietnam - Environment police Sunday discovered that a company in Lam Dong Province had illegally logged a vast area of natural forest.

22/6 VietnamPlus: Additional relief helps provinces alleviate drought impacts - 231.5 billion VND (nearly 10.4 million USD) will be allocated to help the benefited provinces address drought and saline encroachment impacts in the winter-spring crop. 

20/6 VietnamPlus: Farming sector moves to regain growth amid climate change - The prolonging drought and saltwater intrusion have damaged nearly 250,000ha of rice, 18,960 ha of vegetables and more than 149,700ha of industrial plants. Over 288,000 households also lacked running water.

20/6 Thomson Reuters Foundation: Worst drought in 90 years and seawater intrusion in Mekong River delta destroy fruit, rice and sugar crops - 1 million people is in urgent need of food assistance and 2 million people lacking access to drinking water.

10/6 The Jakarta Post: Why ASEAN must pay more attention to the Mekong Delta - The great Mekong River is at its lowest level in a century after experiencing its worst dry spell in 90 years.

10/6 IRIN: Dams, drought and disaster along the Mekong river - In Cambodia, water shortages are reported in 18 of 25 provinces and more than 93,500 poor, rural households are affected by the drought.

7/6 RFA: Vietnam Sees Little Relief from Dangerous Drought - According to a report by Vietnam’s Ministry of Planning and Investment, the drought has cost more than 15 trillion Vietnamese dong (U.S. $671 million) for the dry season of 2016.

6/6 The Nation: Mekong dam projects ‘could destroy livelihoods, ecology’ - THE ECOLOGY of the Mekong River could be destroyed within 10 years if dam projects along the river are allowed to continue, Thai and Cambodian non-government organisations have warned.

6/6 Thanh Nien: UN promises to help Vietnam overcome worst water crisis in decades - Truong Duy Hai, vice chairman of Ben Tre province, said more than 80,000 families lack fresh water and have to resort to salty water. He said salt water has encroached 50 kilometers deep into the land.

31/5 Thanh Nien: Vietnam's 2016 drought-hit rice output to fall 1.5 percent - Vietnam's rice exports this year will dip 4.45 percent from 2015 to 6.44 million tonnes, partly due to drought in the Delta.

28/5 New York Times: Drought and ‘Rice First’ Policy Imperil Vietnamese Farmers - The Mekong Delta, Vietnam’s premier rice growing region, is suffering its worst drought since French colonial administrators began recording statistics in 1926. Giant cracks, some a foot deep, gouge the hard earth; brown stalks of dead rice litter the fields; and the dryness is so severe even the pests lie shriveled on the ground.

23/5 Mekong Commons: Tra Su wetlands in the Mekong delta losing its biodiversity due to drought - The Tra Su wetland forests cover more than 850 hectares, and holds an extraordinary range of biodiversity of plants, fish, and wetland birds and animals such as storks, herons, egrets, snakes, turtles and many kinds of bats.

12/5 VietNam News: Mekong provinces help locals fight drought - Authorities in the Mekong Delta provinces have helped locals cope with the prolonged drought and salinity in rivers, minimising the losses caused by the twin disasters

9/5 Thanh Nien: Historic drought forces Vietnamese farmers to migrate for city jobs - Months of extreme drought, the worst in the Mekong Delta’s history, has cast a heavy spell in the agriculture province Soc Trang, almost turning it into abandoned land.

27/4 Business Insider: Vietnam is being crippled by its worst drought in nearly a century - Vietnam's breadbasket southwestern region has been hit by the worst drought in 90 years, badly damaging the nation's economy.

19/4 Thanh Nien: Drought killing Vietnam rice crops compounds Mekong water crisis - The dry spell in the once-fertile Mekong Delta is devastating food supplies in southern Vietnam and threatening to reduce global exports of rice, seafood and coffee

5/4 VietNam News: Water releases help Delta - Farmers in the Mekong Delta have been told to draw water since levels have risen in rivers following the release of water by China and Laos from hydropower dams on the upstream Mekong River

1/3 Channel NewsAsia: Vietnam hit by worst drought in 90 years - Scientists blame the ongoing 2015-2016 El Nino weather phenomenon, one of the most powerful on record, for the current drought

Vietnam, the world second largest rice exporter, needs greater international help to deal with climate change to ensure global food security, Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung told the COP15 Copenhagen Climate Change Summit. As a country that will suffer most from climate change, Vietnam introduced its official stand about climate change at the COP15 conference.

PM Dung and leaders of Vietnamese ministries had over 30 bilateral meetings with their counterparts from other nations, most of them affirmed that no matter what the results of the conference are, Vietnam should be considered high priority for receiving support to combat climate change and rising sea levels.

SPEECH BY H.E. NGUYEN TAN DZUNG, PRIME MINISTER OF THE SOCIALIST REPUBLIC OF VIETNAM AT THE UN CLIMATE CHANGE SUMMIT IN COPENHAGEN
(Copenhagen, Denmark, 16 December 2009) (full official text) - PDF 2 pages
Madam Chair, Heads of Delegations, Ladies and gentlemen,

On behalf of the Government and people of Viet Nam, I would like to convey my warmest greetings to all delegates. The Danish Government and Prime Minister personally should be commended for the contributions to the fight against climate change and for the excellent preparations for this Conference, which is of immense significance.
Ladies and gentlemen,
Viet Nam is among the few countries most heavily affected by climate change, but it is not one of the big greenhouse gas emitters. Our country has a long coastline with many economic zones and population concentrated in the coastal areas. Viet Nams deltas of Red River and Mekong River provide food not only for 86 million people of Viet Nam but also hundreds of millions of people elsewhere, as they produce one fifths of the total volume of exported rice in the world. If the sea level rises 1 meter, 38% of the deltas and coastal area of Viet Nam will be submerged, wreaking havoc on people’s lives, society and food security of Viet Nam and the world. Viet Nam has proactively developed and has been actively implementing the National Target Programme to respond to climate change.
The earth is our common house. Responding to climate change is extremely urgent, which all nations must take the responsibility. Viet Nam welcomes and highly values the important initiatives aimed at protecting the climate system. We hope that at this Conference, consensus will be achieved on new international agreements on response to climate change with the following thrusts:
Firstly, the UN framework Convention on climate change and Kyoto Protocol with amendments and supplements applicable to countries with high emission will continue to serve as the fundamental legal framework for the international community to act against climate change.
Secondly, developed countries must take the lead in making strong commitments and setting out specific targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the mid-term and long-term so that the average temperature rise will not exceed two degree Celsius by the end of this century.
Thirdly, it is incumbent upon developed countries and big greenhouse gas emitters to support developing countries, especially those most severely affected by climate change and sea level rise, through new financial mechanisms, technology transfer and the use of the Adaptation Fund as well as capacity enhancement.
Fourthly, developing nations need to make active contributions to the global efforts through the development and implementation of action plans to respond to climate change on a voluntary basis, ensuring their sustainable development.
Fifthly, the international community needs a new financial institution to effectively coordinate responses to climate change.
Viet Nam is committed to seriously delivering on its responsibility. We appreciate the support and assistance by the international community, which we hope will be continued and increase so that we can effectively respond to climate change and sea level rise.
It is my hope and belief that with the responsibility, efforts and contributions of each and every nation, particularly of developed countries and big greenhouse gas emitters, our historic Conference will be a success. 
Thank you. 

PM Nguên Tân Dung was in Copenhagen, Denmark on December 16-18 2009, to participate in the 15th United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP15) and the 5th meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol (CMP5). The Government chief wants to take the occasions to show strong determination of the Vietnamese Government in the fight against climate change. VNA
Biography

30/11 COP15 blog by Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung: "Vietnam Responds to Climate Change":  
3 page PDF for print

Minister of Natural Resources and Environment Pham Khoi Nguyen holds a press conferance 19/12, right after coming back to Hanoi from Copenhagen (PDF)

 

KLIMA-artikler om Vietnam på dansk Ajour

VieNam Ajour 4-2009

• Danske forskere skal redde flodmundinger
• Ti procent af Vietnam ødelægges af klimaforandringer  
• Salt kan ødelægge halvdelen af landbrugsjorden

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Vigtig bog "Turen Går Til De Varme Lande" om klimaforandringerne

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