Vietnam has joined countries’ call for UN agencies, including the UN Security Council, to coordinate and help countries and regional organisations in dealing with climate change at an open debate of the UN Security Council on January 25. 

Ambassador Dang Dinh Quy, Head of Vietnam’s Permanent Mission to the UN

Addressing the debate, Ambassador Dang Dinh Quy, Head of Vietnam’s Permanent Mission to the UN, shared other countries’ opinions that impacts from climate change-related disasters sow the seeds of instability and even conflicts in some places in the world.  

He said the world is suffering from increasingly serious impacts of climate change with various kinds of extreme weather, such as displacement of people and threats to food security, water resource, and even the existence of island countries.

The diplomat shared the challenges faced by Vietnam as a country among the top 10 countries hardest hit by climate change in the past 20 years and the top 6 worst affected in the past four years. He noted that the sea level rise has influenced the livelihoods of tens of millions people in the Mekong Delta, a major rice bowl of the country, thus threatening food security of not only Vietnam but also many foreign nations because 90 percent of Vietnamese rice export come from the delta.

Quy stressed that it is necessary to set up mechanisms to share information and experience in the fields, and enhance discussions on the relations between climate change and security.

The debate was attended by ministers, deputy ministers and ambassadors from 76 UN member states along with leaders of UN agencies.

According to Rosemary DiCarlo, Under-Secretary-General for Political and Peace-building Affairs, to address climate-related security risks, it is a must to develop stronger risk analysis capacity, pool good risk management and prevention practice  and reinforce partnerships to leverage existing capacities within and outside the UN system.

Meanwhile, Administrator of the UN Development Programme (UNDP) Achim Steiner said that the UNDP and the UN’s Department of Political and Peacebuilding Affairs and Environment Programme are working to develop a climate-related security mechanism to raise public awareness of climate change’s threat to global security, and a mechanism to evaluate climate change risks and improve existing capacities.

Besides calling on the UN Security Council to take practical actions, participants at the debate laid stress on the necessity of technical support and mechanisms to manage risks and give early warning of natural calamities among countries and organisations. 

They said that relevant international commitments like Paris Agreement and Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction must be strictly implemented.-VNA