CAMBODIA’S national ministries need to work together to mitigate the impact that changing weather patterns could have on the country’s human and economic development, officials said yesterday at a national climate change workshop.

Speaking at the opening ceremony of a Cambodia Climate Change Alliance workshop in Phnom Penh, Rafael Dochao Moreno, chargé d’affaires for the delegation of the European Union in Cambodia, said the Kingdom, as a developing country, was especially vulnerable to the effects of climate change.

“Climate change will fundamentally affect the main drivers for economic and human development in Cambodia,” he told the workshop. “The effects of climate change have the potential to increase existing inequalities, as well as present new challenges that will have direct implications for the achievement of the Cambodian Millennium Development Goals.”

The challenges that climate change could present, Moreno said, range from “increased frequency and severity of storms, floods and droughts, to shifting rainfall patterns, rising sea levels and human development”.

The CCCA, a partnership between government and international donors that will act as an implementing body for the inter-ministerial National Climate Change Committee, was officially launched in February this year and has received a total of US$8.9 million in funding from international donors including the EU.

Moreno emphasised that the CCCA is not a programme of the Environment Ministry but of the NCCC and, as such, “requires commitment and engagement from all ministries”.

Minister of Environment Mok Mareth, who also chairs the NCCC, said yesterday that the alliance would assist in the development of coordinated national policies and strategies to combat climate change over the coming decades. “We are undertaking this task at a time when climate change-related issues are becoming more and more serious, requiring the utmost attention,” he said.