Given this, the 13th National Party Congress regarded protecting and improving the environment, and implementing solutions to climate change and natural disasters as main tasks.

Vietnam is facing various types of natural disasters, such as record-breaking temperatures, flooding, saltwater intrusion, and landslides.

The National Steering Committee for Natural Disaster Prevention and Control reported 1,964 natural disasters of 21 types last year, causing huge human and property losses. Since the beginning of this year, the country experienced extreme weather events like severe cold spells in northern and north-central regions, drought, saltwater intrusion, landslides and flooding in the Mekong Delta, and hail storms in northern, north-central, Central Highlands and southern regions.

The National Centre for Hydro-Meteorological Forecasting said up to 13 storms and tropical depressions are expected to enter the East Sea this year, of which up to seven would make landfall.

Against the backdrop, Vietnam has worked out policies, strategies, and plans in response to climate change, and taken disaster risk management as a key task.

The work has been integrated into socioeconomic plans as well as investment programmes and projects of ministries, agencies and localities, especially those on infrastructure development, transport, and new urban area building.

Deputy head of the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment (MoNRE)’s Vietnam Meteorological and Hydrological Administration Hoang Duc Cuong said the administration has been assigned to keep a close watch on weather conditions and water sources to issue both early and long-term warnings.

Professor, Dr. Huynh Thi Lan Huong, from the Hanoi University of Natural Resources and Environment, proposed a number of solutions to fulfil climate change adaptation targets in Vietnam such as restoring forest resources and ecosystems, paying more attention to agriculture and food security, investing more in infrastructure, establishing early warning systems, building climate facilities, and relocating residents in climate risk areas.

At the 28th United Nations Climate Change Conference in Duba, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), last year, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh highlighted solutions taken by Vietnam, including the roll-out of a climate strategy, another on green growth, and the National Power Development Plan VIII, and the building of a range of relevant institutions.

Despite significant outcomes reaped over the past decades, more specific actions are needed to ease losses from climate change./.VNA