Asia-Pacific, Climate Change, Development & Aid, Environment, Headlines, Health, Human Rights

VIETNAM: Human Rights, Health: Twin Issues for Climate Change

Helen Clark

HANOI, Nov 11 2009 (IPS) - Vietnam will be one of five nations most affected by climate change. Worst-case scenarios see large parts of the low-lying and flood-prone Mekong Delta area, which produces much of the nation’s rice crop, flooded.

A one-metre rise in sea level, predicted by 2100 will affect 10 percent of Vietnam’s population (which now stands at 86 million) and 10 percent of GDP lost.

The government could not have been more right when it released these scenarios in August. Many international organisations concur.

As millions are displaced and the potential for vector-borne diseases such as malaria and dengue to spread grows, health and human rights have become concerns closely related to climate change.

The links between health, human rights and climate change was the focus of the 260-delegate-strong conference held in Hanoi from October 26 to 29.

One hundred million people, out of a total of 150 million worldwide, will have to migrate thanks to climate change effects in Asia, said Daniel Tarantola, professor of Health and Human Rights at the University of New South Wales, in his opening address at the ‘International Conference on Realising the Rights to Health and Development for All’.

“Forced migration moves people away from the basic infrastructure on which good health absolutely depends like sanitation and clean water, making them vulnerable to communicable diseases in crowded, under serviced temporary settlements,” added Tarantola, who was also one the organisers of the conference.

Rapid urbanisation and its associated health problems are another issue.

Tarantola said 60 percent of people worldwide will live in cities in 2030, up from 14 percent in 1900. “Urbanisation is exposing hundreds of millions of people to poor air quality and inadequate sanitation and services, particularly in Asia.”

Though nearly three-quarters of Vietnam’s population is still rural, the nation is struggling with rapid urbanisation; Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC), the southern hub and commercial centre, recently passed the seven million mark.

“Rural townships will become cities (as a result of climate change),” he told IPS in an interview, referring to Vietnam. “And the cities are not equipped for these people. For example, HCMC, how can it be protected?”

The ADB estimates that two-thirds of HCMC, which is close to the Mekong Delta, will be flooded by 2050.

Another keynote speaker, regional climate change expert Gurmit Singh of Malaysia, said that Asia’s response to climate change so far has to been to blame more industrialised nations rather than take its own mitigating action.

Tarantola, who is more optimistic than Singh, says that Vietnam’s communist government has “done a lot of sophisticated policy adaptation. There is awareness that tomorrow will not be like yesterday.”

It is “not earth-shattering or sophisticated,” Koos Neefjes, a policy advisor on climate change at the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), told IPS via email, but Vietnam has at least made strides in “implementing improvements on disaster management.”

The government’s swift efforts last month saved many lives when Typhoon Ketsana hit the central coast, killing 163. Increasing inclement weather events are also forecast to increase in Vietnam.

Ugo Blanco of the UNDP’s disaster management arm told IPS after Ketsana hit: “Vietnam suffers 6.4 typhoons per year—this is already typhoon number nine, and we have one or two months until the end of the season. I would say climate change will impact negatively.”

At the Hanoi a climate change conference, Deputy Prime Minister Hoang Trung Hai said, “Vietnam will be affected much more by climate change” in times to come.

According to local news the government has approved a 12- to 14-million U.S. dollar major project, which will run in two stages from this year until 2020 and will include 36 projects in total. Increasing community understanding of climate change is one focus.

The government has also approved the National Target Programme to respond to climate change. Neefjes says that “Vietnam is to be commended for having pulled this off so soon after the world woke up to climate change in about 2007.” . The issue of human rights does play into solutions such as adaptation and mitigation, says Tarantola. People facing flooding and destruction of lands and crops often have two options: stay or go.

“(And) to what extent do people who are concerned take part in that choice? Relocation poses human rights issues. There’s hardly any arable land (in Vietnam). The economic, social and cultural environment (where they relocate) will be different.”

“You look at the disadvantage—the reduced coping capacity,” he told IPS “Children drowning—how can they be protected from floods? Then you look at women from a social and economic perspective. You look at basic rights and look to meet those.”

“Different professional/development communities are coming together increasingly, including health and environment communities, and more of that needs to happen,” said Neefjes. “(But) we seem to be mainstreaming everything into everything. I don’t see climate change as a ‘framework’ but as a set of pressures.”