Vietnam needs a total of 30 billion USD for climate change responsethrough green growth, said a report released at a meeting in Hanoi onMay 21.
Climate change related disasters have caused annualaverage cost in damages of 2-6 percent of the country’s gross domesticproduct (GDP), according to the Climate Public Expenditure andInvestment Review announced by the Ministry of Planning and Investmentunder the support of the World Bank (WB) and the United NationsDevelopment Programme (UNDP).
The report showedthat the Vietnamese Government spent a limited amount of its ownresources for climate change mitigation, including low-carbon energygeneration (about 4 billion VND equal to 183,000 USD) and energyefficiency measures (about 76 billion VND equal to 348,000 USD).
In the meantime, the report said about 88 percent of the total budgetfor climate-change response during 2010-13 (14.9 trillion VND) was spentfor direct activities, such as building infrastructure, building dykesto protect coasts and afforesting.
Nine percent wasdirected towards science and technology development and three percentfor making policies and management activities related to climate-changeresponse.
In addition, experts said that although theGovernment dedicated a significant amount of spending on climate changeactivities as well as established political agenda through climatechange and green growth strategies, the agenda had not realised its fullpotential, shortcoming were found - and some important activitiesremained underfunded.
Pham Hoang Mai, Director Generalof the ministry's Science, Education, Natural Resources and EnvironmentDepartment, one of authors of the report, said that to integrateclimate change into the budget, the country needed to introduce aclimate budget.
In the long term, this budget couldbecome a rolling programme based on an annually updated medium-termfiscal framework, he said.
Mai also said an importanttask would be to establish a strategic direction for climate-changeresponse plans and expenditure in the social-economic development plan2016-20.
Victoria Kwakwa, the World Bank CountryDirector for Vietnam, said that mainstreaming climate change into thebudget would strengthen Vietnam's resilience against the impacts of awarming world, make communities less vulnerable, and tackle theemissions challenge as Vietnam continued its journey toward a greenerand prosperous future.
According to experts, Vietnam'sgreenhouse gas emissions and overall carbon intensity havesignificantly increased as a result of the economic expansion.
Statistics from the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environmentshowed that greenhouse gas emissions rose from 103.8 million tonnes ofcarbon dioxide to 246.8 million of tonnes between 1994 and 2010.
Thus, the report helped accelerate the country's transition to alow-carbon economy, said Louise Chamberlain, Country Director for theUnited Nations Development Programme.-VNA
Climate change related disasters have caused annualaverage cost in damages of 2-6 percent of the country’s gross domesticproduct (GDP), according to the Climate Public Expenditure andInvestment Review announced by the Ministry of Planning and Investmentunder the support of the World Bank (WB) and the United NationsDevelopment Programme (UNDP).
The report showedthat the Vietnamese Government spent a limited amount of its ownresources for climate change mitigation, including low-carbon energygeneration (about 4 billion VND equal to 183,000 USD) and energyefficiency measures (about 76 billion VND equal to 348,000 USD).
In the meantime, the report said about 88 percent of the total budgetfor climate-change response during 2010-13 (14.9 trillion VND) was spentfor direct activities, such as building infrastructure, building dykesto protect coasts and afforesting.
Nine percent wasdirected towards science and technology development and three percentfor making policies and management activities related to climate-changeresponse.
In addition, experts said that although theGovernment dedicated a significant amount of spending on climate changeactivities as well as established political agenda through climatechange and green growth strategies, the agenda had not realised its fullpotential, shortcoming were found - and some important activitiesremained underfunded.
Pham Hoang Mai, Director Generalof the ministry's Science, Education, Natural Resources and EnvironmentDepartment, one of authors of the report, said that to integrateclimate change into the budget, the country needed to introduce aclimate budget.
In the long term, this budget couldbecome a rolling programme based on an annually updated medium-termfiscal framework, he said.
Mai also said an importanttask would be to establish a strategic direction for climate-changeresponse plans and expenditure in the social-economic development plan2016-20.
Victoria Kwakwa, the World Bank CountryDirector for Vietnam, said that mainstreaming climate change into thebudget would strengthen Vietnam's resilience against the impacts of awarming world, make communities less vulnerable, and tackle theemissions challenge as Vietnam continued its journey toward a greenerand prosperous future.
According to experts, Vietnam'sgreenhouse gas emissions and overall carbon intensity havesignificantly increased as a result of the economic expansion.
Statistics from the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environmentshowed that greenhouse gas emissions rose from 103.8 million tonnes ofcarbon dioxide to 246.8 million of tonnes between 1994 and 2010.
Thus, the report helped accelerate the country's transition to alow-carbon economy, said Louise Chamberlain, Country Director for theUnited Nations Development Programme.-VNA
