ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the complexity of defining 'climate finance' and highlights the importance of mainstreaming climate change into development cooperation, its benefits and its barriers. It compares European and Japanese development cooperation in terms of ideology, incentives, instruments, modalities and means of implementation with a specific focus on climate change activities. The chapter highlights important climate activities of the EU and Japan in Vietnam as an Official Development Assistance (ODA)-recipient country. Under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the Kyoto Protocol, the Bali Action Plan and the Copenhagen Accord call for developed countries to provide 'new and additional' climate finance to developing countries. Vietnam is likely to experience significant environmental challenges, of which changes in sea level will be the most challenging. Vietnam has more than 80 per cent of its population living at risk of direct impacts of natural disasters.
