Hanoi (VNA) – Domestic and foreignscientists along with over 600 students from universities in Hanoi gathered in Hanoion May 8 for a dialogue on climate change adaptation.

French Vice Ambassador to Vietnam Oliver Sigauxsaid the dialogue aims to raise awareness among young people about climatechange and encourages each youth to become a factor for the common developmentof the whole society.

AFD Director Fabrice Richy said Vietnam will bethe first country to be evaluated by a group of researchers from the agency.

The economic research programme on climatechange (Gemmes Vietnam) will coordinate closely with the Ministry of NaturalResources and Environment and the National Committee on Climate Change to applythe latest research methods to study climate change’s impacts on economy aswell as evaluate the possible damage and the resilience capacity of Vietnam.

These evaluations will be used to determineVietnam’s international position in climate change negotiations and to serveinternal purpose of optimising climate change adaptation at the provinciallevel.

According to head of the climate changedepartment under the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment Tang TheCuong, Vietnam is among countries heaviest affected climate change. The countryhas low greenhouse gas emissions, which will increase sharply due toindustrialisation and dependence on fossil fuel.

Being aware of challenges posed by climate change,the Vietnamese government approved a national programme to cope with climatechange in 2008, a national strategy to deal with climate change in 2011, and anational strategy on green growth from 2012.

The government called on the involved parties,especially young people, to actively join social activities in response toclimate change because youngsters are the key force of the society, affectingthe country’s social development.

Participants discussed the climate changesituation in Vietnam, including the impacts of human activities on climatechange and vice versa.

At the dialogue, the AFD and the Ministry ofNatural Resources and Environment jointly announced the implementation of theGemmes Vietnam.

The programme aims to facilitate the implementationof public policy dialogues relating to macro economic issues in associationwith climate change and energy conversion.

Accordingly, Vietnam will be the first nation inAsia to get benefits from this programme.

Vietnam experienced unprecedentedly severenatural disasters in 2017. Sixteen storms and six tropical depressions formedin the East Sea, of which five storms and three tropical depressions directlyhit Vietnam.

Severe disasters resulted in 386 people beingdeclared dead or missing, 122 more people than in 2016 and 86 more people thanthe average number of the past decade. Economic losses amounted to 60,000billion VND (2.6 billion USD), a 30-percent increase compared with 2016 and 2.5times higher than the average of the past decade.-VNA