Environment and natural resources
Climate change
No scientific evidence Mekong Delta will go under: PM
Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc said “there is no scientific basis” to the recent prediction that the Mekong Delta will be submerged in 30-50 years. The PM said Friday that a paper warning the Mekong Delta could be submerged underwater by 2050 lacks scientific backing. While admitting ...
Hoang Thuy, Viet Tuan
Troubles on the Mekong
On October 29, Laos unveiled a new dam in the country’s north. The 1.3-gigawatt Xayaburi dam sits on the Mekong River, which flows the length of the country. Laos plans to build nearly a hundred like it by 2020—many with direct funding and support from ...
Sam Geall
Rising Sea Levels Threaten to Flood Southern Vietnam by 2100
HO CHI MINH CITY – It’s not quite the first thing on everyone’s minds in the booming financial center of Vietnam, but everyone kind of knows it might happen: Global sea levels pushed up by climate change threatens to flood the city by the year ...
Ralph Jennings
Laos intensifying efforts in agriculture climate change response
The government is accelerating efforts to boost farmers’ yields to meet national food security strategy and production targets by 2020 in response to global climate change. Minister of Agriculture and Forestry Dr Lien Thikeo made the statement during a recent address to mark World Food Day. He ...
Ounkham Pimmata
Will ASEAN be underwater by 2050?
With 80 percent of the region surrounded by water, ASEAN regularly faces water-related disasters such as floods, cyclones and storms – which are heightened by climate change. Greenhouse gases (GHG) are progressively warming the environment, and melting ice sheets and glaciers are increasing the volume of ...
Jason Thomas
Eating less meat can fight climate change
Food has an environmental impact. A 2018 study by J. Poore and T. Nemecek titled ‘Reducing food’s environmental impacts through producers and consumers,’ published by the University of Oxford revealed that food production is responsible for 26 percent of all greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, contributing ...
Liyana Hasnan
Mekong Coffee Growers Struggle with Drought and a Warming Climate
In villages around the city of Buon Ma Thuot, Vietnamese farmers wait for the monsoon that normally arrives in April or May. “The fruits look ripe outside, but the bean is crispy and small because there was not enough rain,” says 28-year-old Y Bel Eban from Krong village, ...
Karoline Kan
Will climate change spell the end of coal and hydropower in the Mekong?
This year has been rough for the 70 million people who call the Mekong River basin home: a severe drought rocked the region for months before yielding to deadly flooding. The Mekong slowed to its lowest level in recorded history, knocking the world’s largest freshwater fishery—Cambodia’s Tonle Sap Lake—out of ...
Skylar Lindsay
Climate Change is causing dire consequences for the Greater Mekong region
The consequences of climate change is getting worse as each day passes. From shrinking ice caps to drawn out drought seasons, it seems that every country across the globe has experience some sort of impact from the drastic changes in weather patterns. And one of climate change’s victims, Southeast Asia’s ...
Mae Yen Yap
At a Cambodian Lake, a Climate Crisis Unfolds
When I first met Ly Heng in May 2016, the forest behind his house was still smoldering — the remnants of the worst drought to hit Southeast Asia in decades. Heng lived along a small river at the top of Cambodia’s Tonle Sap Lake, in a protected ...
Abby Seiff