Vietnam's Precarious Climate Future
An article in yesterday’s New York Times highlights the potential impacts of climate change on Vietnam should sea levels continue to rise in the coming decades. Home to millions and a major rice-growing region, the Mekong Delta has already been identified as one of the world’s biggest potential climate refugee hot spots.
Some excerpts:
In a worse-case projection…more than one-third of the delta, where 17 million people live and nearly half the country’s rice is grown, could be submerged if sea levels rise by three feet in the decades to come. In a more modest projection, it calculates that one-fifth of the delta would be flooded…
Storm surges could periodically raise that level… (and) an intrusion of salt water and industrial pollution could contaminate much of the remaining delta area.”
“The risks of climate change for Vietnam go far beyond the Mekong Delta, up into the Central Highlands, where rising temperatures could put the coffee crop at risk, and to the Red River Delta in the north, where large areas could be inundated near the capital, Hanoi.”
“If the sea level rises by three feet, 11 percent of Vietnam’s population could be displaced”
Check out www.secureamericanfuture.org for further information on the global impacts of climate change, including an interactive world map highlighting regional threats.
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Very true: Vietnam is a clear area under threat from climate change.
An important thing to note in this. Tomorrow, the Senate is scheduled to vote on blocking funding for the CIA’s new center on climate change and national security. This is an important vote that could undermine the Intelligence Community’s ability to forsee the impacts of climate change.
http://climatesecurity.blogspot.com/2009/10/senate-to-vote-to-strip-funding-for-cia.html