The seminar provided participants with an overview of climate change and the rising sea level, their potential impacts and the role of sea and islands in the country’s economic development.

According to experts, if the sea level rises by 1m by the end of this century, about 40 percent of the Mekong Delta and 11 percent of the Red River Delta will be submerged, affecting the lives of millions of locals.

Nguyen Van Tue, Director of the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment’s Hydrometeorology and Climate Change Department, said that in the past five decades, Vietnam’s average temperature has increased by 0.5 degree Celsius each year due to climate change, while a rise in rainfall has been recorded in most of regions.

Over the past 15 years, natural disasters, including storms, floods, droughts and landslides, have killed and injured more than 10,700 people, while causing economic losses of about 1.5 percent of GDP each year, he added.

Tue emphasised the need to raise people’s awareness about coping with climate change and the rising sea level, while strengthening the country’s forecasting capacity and legal system on climate change issues.

On the same day, the Ministry of Defence, the southern province of Kien Giang and northern Nam Dinh province also held meetings to mark World Environment Day, whose theme this year is “Raise Your Voice, Not the Sea Level”.

Owning a long coastline, Vietnam faces many typhoons and other natural disasters every year. It is one of the countries most vulnerable to climate change and a sea level rise.