Phouvong Luangxaysana speaks at a ceremony on Wednesday to publicise a booklet on climate change. - Photo: Pathedlao Newspaper
VIENTIANE: Efforts to build climate change resilience will be strengthened with the launch by the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment of a national strategy on climate change towards 2030 and a booklet about climate change.
A ceremony to publicise the new strategy and the booklet took place in Vientiane on Wednesday (June 26).
Those attending the event included Deputy Minister of Natural Resources and Environment Phouvong Luangxaysana and the Country Director, Laos Resident Mission of the Asian Development Bank (ADB), Sonomi Tanaka.
Speaking at the ceremony, Phouvong expressed his gratitude to ADB for contributing to the creation of the national strategy on climate change towards 2030 and the associated booklet.
“These documents define the overall goals and objectives, basic principles, programmes and priority projects towards climate change until 2030.”
“They involve many sectors at both the central and local levels, and aim to strengthen adaptation to and upgrade climate change resilience, by reducing greenhouse gas emissions and creating a suitable environment for climate change management, as well as measures for the implementation, monitoring, evaluation and reporting of progress in this work,” Phouvong said.
“These documents will be an important basis for defining and integrating climate change works into strategies, plans, programmes and projects undertaken by ministries and other stakeholders at the central and local levels, with the ultimate aim of reducing global warming and slowing climate change.”
The Lao government, along with many others around the world, places a strong emphasis on efforts to resolve the climate change issue.
Laos has been ratified as a party to several treaties such as the UN Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in 1995, the Kyoto Protocol on the Control of Greenhouse Gas Emissions in 2003, and the Paris Agreement on Climate Change in 2016, and was the first Asean country to officially subscribe to this movement.
The Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment is currently formulating the Low Greenhouse Gas Emissions Strategy and the Decree on Carbon Credit in Laos.
These important policy and legislative documents will be used as a framework by government bodies at the central and local levels to carry out the work required to slow climate change.
The government is also working towards the goal of reducing the emission and absorption of greenhouse gasses to zero by the year 2050. - Vientiane Times/ANN
