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Green Government

Vietnam to build greenhouse gas emissions database

By Johanna Morden | 8 February 2011

Vietnam has teamed up with the Asian Development Bank to build a database detailing the greenhouse gas emissions of major government departments and urban centres in the country.

The database will be the first of its kind in Vietnam.

It will contain records of greenhouse gas emissions from the country’s Ministry of Industry and Trade (MOIT), Ministry of Transport and the People’s Committees of three of its urban districts—Ho Chi Minh City, Da Nang City and Thanh Hoa province.

“The database will help the different ministries and cities in Vietnam begin to understand how much carbon emissions they are putting out, where it’s coming from, and find ways to lower these emissions,” said Pradeep Tharakan, a Climate Change Specialist at the Asian Development Bank (ADB).

Tharakan also told FutureGov Asia Pacific that the database will aid these sectors in refining their action plans for combatting and addressing climate change, and in monitoring the progress being done in the implementation of these actions plans.

“To have an action plan to lower their emissions, they need to be able to track their emissions,” he said.

ADB’s consultants have been scheduled to start collecting and compiling information for the database by May this year.

The database has been envisioned by the ADB as a tool mainly to help the departments and urban centres to plan action plans.

“Eventually, it’s up to the government if they want to release it as an ICT initiative available to the public or to outsiders,” said Tharakan.

The database will fall under the climate change mitigation option of a comprehensive project of the Vietnamese government to design and execute climate change action plans.

This is in line with the Vietnamese government’s National Target Program to develop a more climate-resilient economy while producing less greenhouse gas.

Under this project, the ADB will be providing technical assistance to Vietnam, as well as administering the US$2.75 million grant from the Nordic Development Fund.

The project will be executed by Vietnam’s Ministry of Industry and Trade (MOIT). It will end on May 2013.

According to information from the ADB, the objective of this project is to “identify the risks to economic sectors and communities from climate change, with mitigation and adaptation options identified and integrated into comprehensive action plans.”

Vietnam’s urban centres and low-lying deltas are facing a serious threat from the impacts of climate change, such as extreme weather conditions and rising sea levels.

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