How the UK is helping Vietnam to progress its Climate Change Policy

By Claire Lewis & Le Thi Ngoc Bich, Climate Change Attaché, Vietnam.

It’s been a busy few weeks for our colleagues in Vietnam.  From ASEAN-wide International Negotiators training in Hanoi to the launch of the Greenhouse Gas Inventories workshops in London, to the development of a 2050 Calculator tool; there has been a lot to talk about.  Now the dust has settled, I wanted to share with you a snapshot of the work of the three recently launched Prosperity Fund Projects that focus on Climate Change in Vietnam and show how UK expertises are having an impact in the development of Vietnam’s Climate Change policies.

Reaching a Global Climate Deal: ASEAN Climate Change Negotiators Workshop

The end of August saw the inaugural event of Climate Change Negotiators workshop in Hanoi, where Vietnam as the Chair of the ASEAN Climate Change Working Group, is eager to stimulate long-term regional cooperation and to provide a mechanism for further strengthening negotiating skills of ASEAN countries.

The aim of the project is to train and strengthen the skills of the climate change negotiators in ASEAN to pave the way to a successful outcome at the UN climate negotiations in the 21st Conference of Parties (COP) on Climate Change in Paris in December 2015.  The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has been supporting similar training programmes globally and this year the Vietnamese Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment (MONRE) and the British Embassy Hanoi co-hosted a three-day ASEAN-wide training course, with the UNDP Vietnam providing the technical training to the negotiators.

Some sixty participants, forty from Vietnam and twenty from the other nine ASEAN countries attended the workshop, including representatives from the ASEAN Secretariat.

The first session focused on building skills and sharing basic information; this was well received, not just by the smaller delegations such as Laos and Brunei, but also by new members of more experienced delegations such as Singapore and Thailand. The second session was aimed at senior negotiators with a focus on the most challenging elements and the key issues to be agreed, including views on how adaptation, finance and mitigation could fit in the new climate agreement in Paris next year.

ASEAN countries all presented on the issues were most important for them with open and frank discussions on the key, contentious negotiating issues, which gave insights in the negotiation space and possible outcomes of the negotiating process.

Looking ahead to those key negations in Paris and from the success of the recent summit in New York, the challenge will be to ensure a new agreement consistent with keeping the global average temperature rise within two degrees Celsius whilst allowing all nations, big and small, to make a responsible contribution to tackling climate change.  Workshops like these can be transformational in preparing and strengthening the skills of negotiators in an international arena and I am sure that the training provided to support and strengthen negotiators here will play a key role in achieving a global climate deal.

UK delivers Greenhouse Gas Inventory Training for Vietnamese Government

The second recently launched Prosperity Fund project in Vietnam focused on Greenhouse Gases Inventories (GHGI), with the first of three workshops opening at the beginning of October.

Ricardo-AEA, a leading UK based global sustainability consultancy (and the operator of the UK’s GHG emissions inventory programme for over 30 years) is working to support and train MONRE to help develop a GHGI and a monitoring, reporting and verification (MRV) system that is compliant with international standards, such as the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

Starting with the launch of the first workshop in the UK, Technical Directors from MONRE were able to get an in-depth understanding into UK inventory procedures and how this knowledge could be used in Vietnam in the implementation of their emissions inventory.   More information on the first workshop and the project is available on Ricardo-AEA’s website.

I am excited to see the results of this project. In order to know whether mitigating actions taken have made a difference in reducing GHGs it essential to use appropriate methods and data to ensure GHGs can be accurately measured and compared. These capacity building activities will ensure that GHGI expertise is retained in-country, and that UK expertise will contribute to the development of a robust and sustainable inventory system for the longer term. The benefits of capacity building projects like these, not only train participants to build up the knowledge & skills base in this area, but give the participants ownership of the project from the beginning, and a stronger chance of embedding this work into the evolving climate change strategy.

The Pathway to 2050: Developing Vietnam’s 2050 Calculator

Stemming from a Prosperity Fund project in 2012-2013, which brought knowledge and know-how of the UK’s Department of Energy & Climate Change (DECC) 2050 Pathway Calculator to the SE Asia region through seminars and training programmes, a Vietnamese team who took this project forward are starting to see real development of a local version of the Calculator.

Starting in April this year with the first of the technical training, there have been several communication and consultation workshops on the web tool calculator, designed to show an emissions reduction pathway from 1990 levels to 2050.  Two members of the Vietnamese team will spend some time in London with DECC colleagues, putting together the final pieces of the webtool together. With DECC’s financial and technical assistance, the team is aiming to have the final webtool presented at COP 20 and launched in December 2014.

Having high level support for this work at the outset is vital, as it gives the best platform for success, and the Vietnamese team have set themselves a high bar of being able to present this to their Prime Minister – displaying the ambition that we like to see our projects strive for.

Going forward, the team have the technical challenge of building the tool at the final stage, but beyond that there are huge possibilities.  By using the tool as strong scientific base, it can help to shape robust policy making to make sure plans are consistent with the long-term emissions reduction goal.

Technical cooperation; UK expertise in Vietnam

As an emerging high-growth market, there are real opportunities in Vietnam for sharing British expertise in combating climate change.   The UK has committed to supporting Vietnam’s efforts to ensure its sustainable socio-economic development and these three prosperity fund projects show a small example of the work being done to achieve this.  The UK has much to offer and I am hopeful that as the climate change agenda in Vietnam grows, UK expertise and the UK experience can continue to play a key role and inspire action to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions and address the growing impact of climate change in Vietnam.