Vietnam and Japan expand environmental cooperation under new deal

Photo: VNA

Minister of Agriculture and Environment Trinh Viet Hung and the Japanese Ministry of Environment exchanged an MoU on November 9, as part of Party General Secretary and State President To Lam's visit to Japan from November 8 to 11. The agreement aims to strengthen, facilitate, and promote cooperation between the two countries in the environmental sector.

According to the agreed content, the two sides will promote cooperation in eight areas, including climate change mitigation and adaptation; measurement, reporting, and verification; developing low-carbon technologies, decarbonisation, and carbon markets, including the Joint Crediting Mechanism and Article 6 of the Paris Agreement.

Other areas of cooperation include urban solid waste management, electronic waste, and industrial waste management to promote a circular economy; controlling water, air, marine, and plastic pollution; developing environmental technologies, environmental restoration, environmental incident response, and monitoring and early warning systems.

The two sides also strengthen cooperation on environmental protection planning, environmental impact assessment, environmentally sustainable urban development; biodiversity conservation, management of invasive alien species, protected areas, community-based natural resource management, access to genetic resources and benefit sharing from the use of genetic resources, biosafety, and other areas agreed upon by both sides.

To implement the cooperation contents, both sides will encourage and facilitate cooperation through various forms appropriate to available resources, including organising regular policy dialogues; exchanging information, expertise and training; policy analysis; conducting feasibility studies; technical cooperation, technology transfer and capacity building.

This MoU reflects the unity of Vietnam and Japan in promoting cooperation in protecting and improving the environment, responding to climate change and aiming for sustainable development.

In the agriculture and environment sectors, the two sides have established several cooperation mechanisms, including the Medium - and long-term Vision for Vietnam-Japan Agricultural Cooperation for 2025–2030, the Environmental Policy Dialogue, the Maritime Policy Dialogue, and cooperation in disaster risk prevention, response and mitigation.

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