Hanoi (VNA)♌ – Designated over a decade ago, the International Mother Earth Day (April 22) is an occasion for countries worldwide to raise a common voice recognising the Earth as the “common home”, point out the need to promote the harmony between human beings and the nature, and encourage global efforts on environmental protection for a green and safe planet of sustainable and prosperous development.

In response to this year’s International Mother Earth Day, the EarthDay.org organisation called on all countries and their leaders to take actions to prevent future disasters as a result of climate change and environmental risks caused by humans, and to revive the Earth. In Vietnam, a country highly vulnerable to climate change, widespread extreme weather conditions have become more frequent in recent years. In the Mekong Delta and the central region, drought repeated in 2019 and 2020 on a larger scale and higher level of severity compared to the historic drought and saltwater intrusion in 2016. Strong storms have increased considerably over the last 35 years and abnormal weather conditions continually been recorded in many areas, leading to widespread landslides and flash floods. The impacts of climate change are causing challenges to climate security, posing latent risks to national stability and development, and triggering waves of migration. Recent statistics show that over the last 10 years, 1.7 million people have migrated from the Mekong Delta while only 700,000 have come there, doubling the national average. That fact indicates climate change has been threatening Vietnam’s efforts to achieve poverty reduction targets and the Sustainable Development Goals. Realising the seriousness of climate change, countries around the world, including Vietnam, ratified the Paris Agreement on climate change adopted at the 21st Conference of Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP21) in 2015. Accordingly, the parties to this agreement have to build and carry out their national plans on climate change adaptation. On July 20 last year, the Prime Minister issued a national plan on climate change adaptation for the 2021 - 2030 period, with a vision to 2050. This plan looks to ease the vulnerability to and risks caused by climate change impacts by enhancing the resilience and adaptability of the community, economic elements, and the ecosystem, and promoting the integration of climate change adaptation into the systems of strategies and plans. Facing the global climate change, especially extreme weather conditions like storms, flooding, drought, and saltwater intrusion that have taken a heavy toll on people’s lives and property, Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc on December 31, 2020, issued Directive 45/CT-TTg on the organisation of a tree planting festival and the enhancement of forest protection and development. The directive orders leaders of ministry-level and governmental agencies and chairpersons of provincial-level localities to proactively take actions to manage, protect, and plant trees and forests right from the 2021 Lunar New Year festival. It also calls on people nationwide to help achieve the target of 1 billion trees planted between 2021 and 2025. This year, about 182 million trees are set to be grown across the country. So far, the one-billion-tree programme has received support from all provinces and cities. On the occasion of the International Mother Earth Day 2021, the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment has sent out a message appealing to people to take practical actions to protect the environment and the Earth. It noted that the current lifestyle, especially the ways the people produce and consume, has seriously affected the Earth’s sustainability. While the world population is expanding and human demand growing, natural resources on earth have been shrinking. Given this, it is necessary to develop a more sustainable model for production, consumption, and the economy as a whole./.