1. Climate change facts

•    Viet Nam signed the UNFCCC on 11 June 1992 and ratified it on 16 November 1994. It signed the Kyoto Protocol on 3 December 1998 and ratified it on 25 September 2002.

•    The Vietnamese Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment (MONRE) has applied global climate change scenarios to the Vietnamese situation, with support from the United Nations in Viet Nam and other partners. The global scenarios are taken from the Fourth Assessment by the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC 2007). These are different global socio-economic scenarios associated with certain levels of future green house gas emissions, and more or less severe climatic changes.

•    MONRE has chosen three of the six scenarios for local use. Of those, the Government has agreed that the B2 medium emissions scenario should be used as a basis for Vietnamese climate change projections and planning. 

•    The B2 scenario will lead to an average annual temperature rise in Viet Nam by 2100 of about 2.3^oC compared to the last decades of the 20^th century¹ . The temperature increase will be felt especially in the northern parts of Viet Nam. However, recent scientific data suggests that the world is still on a high emissions pathway, and according to the A2 high emissions scenario the average annual temperature rise would be as much as 3.6^oC in the north-central coastal region.

•    Climate change will increase annual total rainfall everywhere in Viet Nam. According to the A2 high emissions scenario rainfall is estimated to increase by an average of 6.6 percent during the 21^st century. According to this scenario, average rainfall will increase by as much as ten percent in the Red River Delta area, especially in the wetter months (June to November). In contrast, during the dry months (December to May), especially in the southern regions including the Mekong Delta, average rainfall will decrease by about 20 percent.

•    Decreasing rainfall in dry months will lead to increased drought risks, in particular in the southern regions especially when combined with higher temperatures. With increased  rainfall in June to November there is a strongly increased risk of flooding, especially in northern regions including cities such as Hanoi (which suffered from unseasonal and extreme rainfall in November 2008), and increased risks of landslides in mountainous areas. River floods may also become stronger. In the case of the Mekong River, floods are already being exacerbated by deforestation in the upstream reaches of the river. Examples include the devastating river floods that hit the Mekong Delta in 2000 and 2001 – some of the worst in living memory. In 2000, 481 people were killed and 393 people were killed in 2001 – the majority being children. About 900,000 houses were damaged in 2000 and 350,000 in 2001.

•    Rising sea levels will strongly affect the Mekong Delta and Ho Chi Minh City, parts of the Red River Delta and also a significant coastal strip, including small estuaries. The highest IPCC scenario (A1F1) projects a global average rise in sea levels of 59cm by 2100, due to thermal expansion of warmer sea water. The official Vietnamese prediction is 75cm, based on ‘downscaling’ of the IPCC models to the local level (B2 medium emissions scenario) and accounting for some melting of land ice. In 2007 the IPCC could not agree on melting of land ice but since then, new evidence shows that land ice melting is significantly contributing to sea level rise in the 21^st century.

•    Viet Nam’s own planning parameter is a one meter rise in sea levels by 2100, which is consistent with predictions according to the A2 high emissions scenario (and which accounts for some melting of land ice). This figure is used in the National Target Programme to Respond to Climate Change, approved by the Prime Minister in December 2008. A one meter sea level rise by 2100 is indeed increasingly likely, and according to some of the data published after the IPCC’s Fourth Assessment in 2007, sea levels may rise by as much as 1.4-1.5 meters. Without major action such as dyke reinforcements, a one meter rise in mean sea levels along the coast of Viet Nam would cause major inundation. It is estimated that as much as 30,945 km², 9.3 percent of total land surface, would be inundated without action such as dyke reinforcement. This equals an area the size of Belgium.

•    The inundation threat is most severe in the Mekong Delta, greater Ho Chi Minh City, Red River Delta and along all other coastal areas. ²

•    In greater Ho Chi Minh City 473 km² or 23 percent of all land will be affected, including land along the Saigon / Nha Be river

•    A comparative study of 84 developing countries of the effects of rising sea levels suggests that as a result of a one meter sea level rise, 10.8 percent of the Vietnamese population would be affected – the highest percentage among the countries analysed (with a current population of 85.8 million that equals 9.3 million people) .³

•    The IPCC (2007) has identified the Mekong Delta as one of three ‘extreme’ global hotspots in terms of potential population displaced as a result of a sea level rise. By 2050, as many as one million people risk being displaced in the Mekong Delta (see figure below).

Relative vulnerability of coastal deltas as shown by the indicative population potentially displaced by current sea-level trends to 2050 (Extreme = >1 million; High = 1 million to 50,000; Medium = 50,000 to 5,000) .⁴

•    Viet Nam ranks 6^th among countries in the world with the highest proportion of its population living in Low Elevation Coastal Zones.⁵  Flooding may push vulnerable people to migrate temporarily or permanently, in search of a safer and stable life, potentially causing the displacement of millions of people. Many poor people live in the coastal belt and will be affected by flooding. Women, children and elderly in particular are vulnerable to flooding. Cities and industrial parks are also affected. Poorer urban dwellers often live in areas with low quality drainage and flood protection infrastructure, whilst during floods critical services such as clean water supplies are severely disrupted.

•    Without large-scale action, land in the Mekong Delta, and elsewhere in Viet Nam, will be increasingly inundated with saline water. Importantly, the rise in the average sea level increases saline water intrusion into estuaries. This means that surface water for irrigation is affected and that groundwater is salinising too, so soils and crops will be affected.

•    UNDP⁶  has estimated that: “The Mekong Delta area of Viet Nam, the country’s ‘rice basket’, is a densely populated region that accounts for half of the country’s rice and even more of its fisheries and fruit products. By 2030, rising sea levels in the Delta – where four million people live in poverty – would expose 45 percent of the land to extreme salinization and crop damage, with rice productivity falling by 9 percent. Projections indicate that Viet Nam’s gains over 15 years in reducing poverty, as well as solid progress towards achieving the Millennium Development Goals, would be significantly affected”.

•    Viet Nam is currently the second rice exporter of the world. It produced 38.7 million tonnes of paddy in 2008 and exported 4.65 million tonnes of the husked grain. Thailand and Viet Nam together account for 50 percent of world rice trade.⁷ The Mekong Delta is the main rice production and export area of Viet Nam. The combination of a sea level rise, saline water intrusion, higher temperatures, and droughts – all as a result of climate change – puts pressure on total agricultural production, the incomes of farmers, local and national food security and rice exports, and as a result is an upward pressure on global food prices.

•    The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has estimated that climate change effects could hit rice and coffee production in Viet Nam from as early as 2020. This would imply an increasing pressure on the world market price of rice because Viet Nam is one of the most important rice exporters. However, the total volume of rice traded globally against rice consumed is very small and many domestic staple food markets are regulated. This means that although world market prices may rise actual food insecurity in other countries depends on local production and the regulation of markets. Scientists from the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) agree that the effects of a sea level rise and related saline water intrusion can be grave. One IRRI scientist has said that “with Viet Nam so dependent on rice grown in and around low-lying river deltas, the implications of a sea-level rise are ominous indeed” .⁸

•    Viet Nam experiences an average of 6-8 typhoons annually. The impact of typhoons will get worse as a result of climate change. During “El Niño” years⁹  typhoons become more frequent, stronger, and with landfall over a wider area. 2009 has already been marked by unusual weather patterns in Asia, including major floods. In mid-2009 the signs are that a ‘weak’ El Niño period is developing, which would exacerbate the experience of global warming, with (temporarily) higher temperatures and droughts, and also floods and damaging storms (typhoons). In 1991-1992, El Niño contributed to famine in Southern Africa and caused billions of dollars worth of damage in 1998 from drought to crops and forest fires, as well as flooding in Asia and elsewhere (1998 was the hottest year on record, globally).

•    Viet Nam has 5,000km of river dykes and 3,000km of sea dykes that need expansion and reinforcement. Much of Viet Nam’s more than 3,200km coastline is or should be protected by mangrove forest, as it mitigates against the impact of typhoons. For example, it was estimated that in Kien Thuy District, a four-meter high storm surge resulting from storm number 7 in 2005 (typhoon Damrey) was reduced to a 0.5m wave by extensive restored mangrove forests .¹⁰

•    Considering several modelled climate change effects (i.e. not just a hypothetical sea level rise, but the effects of climate change of the most likely emissions scenarios), ADB  predicts that by 2100 the potential losses caused by climate change to Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand, and Viet Nam may be as high as $230 billion, or 6.7% of annual GDP (if no adaptation action is taken). This is well above the global average. These nations are all at risk from rising sea levels, higher temperatures, falling agricultural yields and increasingly extreme climatic events.

•    It is important is to note that ‘dangerous climate change’ is not about changes in averages alone (which is the main output of model calculations according to emission scenarios), but also about fluctuations year on year that will become more extreme – with extreme outliers, away from the average.

2. Climate change actions supported by the United Nations in Viet Nam

•    The capacities of the Viet Nam delegation to the UNFCCC negotiations in Copenhagen are being strengthened through training, seminars and workshops, and high-level policy dialogues (UNDP, UNEP and other UN organisations).

•    Awareness is being raised, for instance by training and other engagement with the media in Viet Nam (and abroad) and training of Vietnamese children who will attend a high-profile international meeting in Copenhagen just before COP15, as well as by providing support to a youth & climate change conference (UNICEF, UNESCO and UNDP).

•    UNDP has a climate change policy project with the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment as well as the climate change office of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development. Among other things, the project is supporting the work to apply the global emissions scenarios to the different regions in Viet Nam (‘downscaling of climate change scenarios’), providing support to the Standing Office of the National Target Programme to Respond to Climate Change and implementing various parts of this National Target Programme, especially capacity building, vulnerability and adaptation research, information management and awareness raising.

•    UNDP has long supported Viet Nam in improving early warning for disasters, the gathering and reporting of damage data and connecting Viet Nam’s hydro-meteorological data services and the Central Committee for Flood and Strom Control to the national media in order to make information more widely available. UNDP has also supplied tens of thousands of radios to near-shore fishermen so that they can access weather warnings.

•    Working with other UN organisations and the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, UNDP is implementing a new project on disaster risk reduction, supporting institutional strengthening.

•    The UN is doing research on vulnerabilities and adaptation options in collaboration with several national and international partners, including work on coastal rural livelihoods and gender aspects of climate change and climate change responses. The UN is also working on migration and settlement issues in the context of climate change, on spatial planning and urbanization, and on the impacts on workers and the poor of climate change in the Mekong Delta.

•    UNDP, with USAID funds, has also supported the strengthening of ‘residential clusters’ in the Mekong Delta through piloting the use of geotextile, a small project in support of a large Government programme, which focuses on concentrating people on raised land and improving their access to basic services. The Government programme creates settlement areas for home relocation above flood levels so that in the event of flooding evacuation is not necessary and enables construction of safe schools on small community areas. The clusters are raised land along dykes and roads and are generally accessible by water as boats are an important means of transport of people and goods in the Mekong Delta. This is a large-scale construction and relocation programme, already involving hundreds of thousands of people and planned for a million. If implemented well (as is currently the case) the settlements enable access to services and access to canals and fields is retained, which is an improvement over scattered homesteads in remote villages without loss of livelihood. The project gathered pace in response to river floods in 2000 and 2001. The UN, with national partners, plans to study the lessons from the project in the context of climate change.

•    Supported by the Global Environment Facility (GEF), community-based adaptation projects have registered some success, such as improving land management, using more drought resistant seed varieties and making changes to the cropping calendar to deal with desertification and drought. 

•    With UN support, appropriate small-scale water management infrastructure, storm resistant housing, and flood resistant schools have been built. More is needed in order to ‘climate proof’ infrastructure and UNDP, together with ADB and UNEP, is currently preparing a new project in this area.

•    In the context of climate change, forestry is generally seen as a greenhouse gas mitigation action. In addition, coastal forests (especially mangroves) have evident advantages for disaster risk reduction and also for the maintenance of aquaculture and other local livelihoods. The UN has embarked on a UN-REDD (Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation) project with the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, funded by Norway, in the context of the global climate negotiations that are expected to result in financing agreements and mechanisms for REDD.

•    UNDP, UNIDO and UNEP are supporting several projects focused on energy efficient industrial production and public lighting, in particular with funds from the Global Environment Facility.

Source: UNDP Viet Nam, 2009

Endnotes

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¹ Data on climatic changes and sea levels are from MONRE (2009) Climate change, sea level rise scenarios for Viet Nam, Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment, Hanoi, June 2009. They recommend using the B2 scenario and the resultant climate change effects for use in action planning in Viet Nam, but that is perhaps overly cautious. The report was launched officially on 9 September 2009, after being accepted by the Government and Party.
²  Copied from MONRE (2009)
³ Dasgupta, Susmita, Benoit Laplante, Craig Meisner, David Wheeler, and Jianping Yan (2007) The Impact of Sea Level Rise on Developing Countries: A Comparative Analysis, World Bank Policy Research Working Paper 4136, February 2007
⁴ This is figure 6.6 in Nicholls, R.J., P.P. Wong, V.R. Burkett, J.O. Codignotto, J.E. Hay, R.F. McLean, S. Ragoonaden and C.D. Woodroffe (2007) Coastal systems and low-lying areas. Climate Change 2007: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability. Contribution of Working Group II to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, M.L. Parry, O.F. Canziani, J.P. Palutikof, P.J. van der Linden and C.E. Hanson, Eds., Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, 315-356
⁵  Hugo, G. (2008). Migration, Development and Environment, IOM Migration Research Series, No. 35, International Organization for Migration (IOM), Geneva. Viet Nam ranks 7th among countries with the highest number of urban populations living in LECZs.
 ⁶ UNDP (2007) Human Development Report (2007-08) - Fighting climate change: human solidarity in a divided world
 ⁷ ADB (2009) The economics of climate change in Southeast Asia
 ⁸ IRRI (2007) [ref.]
 ⁹ The El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) phenomenon contributes to seasonal climate fluctuations. It is a system of interactions between the equatorial Pacific Ocean and the atmosphere above it. El Niño and La Niña events are opposite states of the ENSO system: El Niño is when the equatorial Pacific is warmer than average and La Niña is when it is cooler than average. Because ENSO events tend to continue for a year, and because they generally influence the climate in a consistent way, ENSO information is used to forecast the climate. Depending on the region and season, some climate conditions are more likely to happen during El Niño events or during La Niña events than at other times. There are suggestions that ENSO intensity and frequency may be affected by climate change, but no consensus on that.
¹⁰  [UNDP-VN & Oxfam]
¹¹  ADB (2009) The economics of climate change in Southeast Asia