Mr. Pham Van Tan, Deputy Director of the Department of Climate Change, MONRE
Representatives from ministries of MPI, MOIT, MARD, MOT, MOC, MOLISA
Representatives from VCCI and private sector
Colleagues from JICA, GIZ, UNEP, development partners and CSOs
Ladies and gentlemen,
Xin Chao and a very good morning!

Let me join Mr. Pham Van Tan in warmly welcoming you to our inception workshop today.  
UNDP is proud to be a trusted partner of the Government of Viet Nam and of the Global Environment Facilities in delivering our technical assistance to enhance Viet Nam’s capacity to fulfil an enhanced transparency framework of the Paris Agreement.

Over the years, we have contributed to various aspects to strengthen Viet Nam readiness for climate change governance, institutional capacities, and regulatory frameworks to UNFCCC processes. UNDP is pleased of our recent contribution to support the key enhancement of Viet Nam’s Nationally Determined Contributions and the recent National Climate Change Strategy until 2050.

On behalf of UNDP, I would like to congratulate the Government of Viet Nam for being the third country, after South Africa and Indonesia, to reach an agreement with G7+ countries to mobilise an initial US$15.5b for just energy transition toward NetZero target by 2050. It is also encouraging that Viet Nam submitted more ambitious goals at COP27, with commitments to cut GHG emissions to 15.8% unconditionally 43.5% conditionally by 2030, compared to business as usual.

Distinguished guests,
Ladies and gentlemen,
As a signatory to the Paris Agreement, Viet Nam is required to provide necessary information to track the country progress toward implementation of the National Determined Contributions (NDC) and on reduction of Green House Gas (GHG) emissions.

Through this CBIT project, Viet Nam can strengthen the country ability to track and report of GHG emissions and implementations of climate actions.

Today, I would like to highlight the three important roles that the CBIT project will play in centralising the measurement, reporting and verification (MRV) and data collection process in Viet Nam.

First, the project enables multi-level engagement of stakeholders in the design of an improved national and sectoral GHG inventories and reporting systems. One of the key steps is to actively mobilise the participation of 1912 facilities, who are categorised as the large emitters under Decree 06/2022 on GHG emission reduction, in all relevant project activities and through a centralised MRV portal. There are several on-going efforts, via technical assistances of GIZ, JICA and UNDP, to develop an open-source climate databases and reporting portals for Viet Nam on NDC, NAP and GHG inventories. At our workshop today, I hope we can put further thoughts in integrate those information systems in one holistic framework and build coherent linkages.

Second, the project needs to design a training platform and training approach that enable resource trainers, experts, and institutions to sustain their technical and institutional capacities to operate the MRV system independently. The project is expected to curate user-friendly tool for a bottom up GHG data collection process, from which each of 1912 large emission facilities can understand what they have to do, when and how to update and report their GHG emission data.  As climate change is a persistent gender issue, we must improve Viet Nam’s MRV process with gender mainstreamed indicators too.

Third, it is high time for Viet Nam to deploy a robust and transparent system to track climate finance across all sectors. Viet Nam, indeed, has undertaken steps to track international and national climate finance through Climate Public Expenditure and Investment Review (CPEIR) with the support of UNDP, WB and GIZ. Via NAP-Sup project, recently UNDP supported MPI and line ministries to complete a handbook for tagging adaptation budget and tracking adaptation finance and investment.

The CBIT project should continue updating the guidelines with systematic data collection for mitigation finance.  Institutionalise these guidelines and tools for climate finance transparency is one of the key conditions for Viet Nam to secure long term and predictable climate finance for NDC implementation, particularly from international capitals. It is particularly important as Viet Nam needs at least US$15-30b annually to implement NetZero 2050. It is also timely to create a financial transparency system to practically delivery the first US$ 15.5b commitments from Just Energy Transition Partnership in the next 3-5 years.

Colleagues,
Ladies and gentlemen,
Viet Nam has made tremendous efforts in the fight against climate changes and now emerging as leading role model in multilateral cooperation in NDC implementation. I look forward to your discussion today on how we can co-create and coordinate on-going efforts to setup of a robust, transparent, and sustainable national MRV system in Viet Nam.

As all countries are expected to submit their first Biennial Transparency Reports by the end of 2024 to UNFCCC, I hope Viet Nam will soon build pragmatic mechanisms and capacities to delivering its first report which meets all the international enhanced transparency requirements of Paris Agreement.

Thank you for joining us today and I hope you will have fruitful exchange and discussion. Xin cam on va chuc suc khoe!