Red alert for disaster due to climate change

Climate change is increasingly complicated, causing unpredictable catastrophes, a hot issue at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) workshop in Da Nang.

The workshop was organized by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development in collaboration with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on July 28 and 29, to implement Vietnam's initiative to strengthen APEC cooperation in the field of prevention and response. and disaster reduction caused by natural disasters and floods.

Climate change is increasingly complicated, causing the tide to penetrate deeper and deeper into the land - Artwork .

According to many experts, the impact of global climate change has made natural disasters more unusual and fierce, causing negative impacts on economic and social development. Particularly, Vietnam has to suffer seriously from many types of natural disasters every year, especially storms and floods. According to statistics in the last 10 years, the average annual natural disaster in Vietnam has robbed 450 people, the economic loss is estimated from 1.2 to 1.5 GDP, of which floods have done 270 dead and missing people.

Experts say that sea level rise with a scenario of 1 m in 2100, 10% of Vietnam's population is directly affected, losses of about 10% of GDP, about 40 thousand km ^₂ of coastal plain The sea will be flooded every year. Especially, for the Mekong River Delta, about 70% of the land is saline intrusion, losing about 2 million hectares of rice land, the time of inundation can last from 4 to 5 months, 38% of copper By being submerged, 90% of the delta area can be salty, with 8.5 million people losing housing.

Speaking at the workshop, Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Dao Xuan Hoc worried: " Vietnam is one of the countries that will be most seriously affected by climate change. Therefore, the managers reason, national and international experts need to actively exchange information, find good practical lessons, experience in managing and coping with floods, thereby contributing to the formation and identification of visions new for APEC member economies on flood management in the future ".

Mr. Hoc added that the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development is cooperating with line ministries to conduct research to develop a Law on Natural Disaster Prevention and Mitigation; implement the national strategy to prevent and mitigate natural disasters. Improving community-based natural disaster awareness and management on a national scale, building a system of disaster prevention works.

Representatives from China, Indonesia, the United States, Asutralia and many other members shared their experiences in forecasting, responding to, monitoring and recovering after floods and storms, as well as new technologies to minimize impacts. of large-scale floods. Japan has information on experience in setting up flood maps and lessons in overcoming consequences after the earthquake and tsunami in March.

Ambassador Muhamad Noor Yacob, Executive Director of the APEC Secretariat, highly appreciated Vietnam's initiative and said: " Prevention and response to natural disasters is one of APEC's top priorities. In In the coming time, APEC will continue to spend budget to support cooperation projects, build capacity on dealing with natural disasters and emergency situations ".

This workshop is one of the key activities to implement the APEC Working Group's action plan for dealing with emergencies. The priority of APEC in 2011 is to prevent and respond to natural disasters. The results of the discussion and recommendations from the workshop will be presented to the APEC Senior Officials Meeting in September in San Francisco and the 23rd APEC Foreign Ministers of Economic and Economic Conference will be held in October. 11 coming in Hawaii, USA.