A greater emphasis on renewable energy could benefit the people and the economy as well as the environment in Vietnam.
Vietnam is planning to more than double its coal-powered generation capacity to meet its surging demand for electricity. But a greater emphasis on renewables could benefit the people and the economy as well as the environment, according to experts.
Vietnam could usefully revise its power-generation strategy to include more renewables, according to local and international experts who met in Hanoi last month.
“We are not talking about closing coal-power plants,” said Nguy Thi Khanh, executive director of Vietnamese NGO the Green Innovation and Development Centre (GreenID). “But we must try to cater for growing energy demand without building new ones.”
She was speaking on 26 June at a workshop co-hosted with the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES) to present a report by GreenID and FES on the opportunities and challenges for a just energy transition in Vietnam.
Transitioning to renewable energies is not only possible, but beneficial, she told the audience of more than 90 representatives of science institutions, non-governmental organizations and trade unions. The study showed that it would also result in better energy security at lower investment cost with reduced impact on the environment and public health—a win-win-win situation.
Vietnam is no exception to the wave of energy development across South-East Asia, where a rising middle class and ongoing industrialization have increased primary energy demand by 70 per cent since the turn of the century. The government’s most recent Power Development Plan (PDP7 revised) calls for a rapid expansion in capacity to feed that demand: from 13,000 megawatts in 2015 to more than 55,000 by 2030, mostly by building more coal-powered plants.
Workshop participants showed a keen interest in the key impacts of energy transition, in addition to the technical and environmental aspects of the report. “Just transition in Vietnam is essentially about unleashing the socioeconomic potential and co-benefits of the country’s renewable sector,” said Yvonne Blos, Director of the regional project by FES in Asia on climate and energy. “It is about creating high-quality jobs in the renewable sector, skills training for renewable and sustainable alternatives and of course emphasizing the increasing affordability of renewables compared to fossil fuels.”
“If the government sets the right incentives, renewable energies will have a very bright future in Vietnam,” said Nghiem Vu Khai, vice chairman of the Vietnam Union of Science and Technology Associations (VUSTA), in his opening remarks. “It is our obligation, because we will be the ones most affected by climate change.”
Panel discussions also highlighted that the concerns of ordinary citizens were more focused on the local impact than the climate itself. “People on the ground are not worried about climate change, they are worried about social services,” said Bobby Peek, from Groundwork South Africa, a non-profit environmental justice service and developmental organization. “It is important to bring that together on global and local scale.”
“Energy transition is not just about moving from one energy to another,” Ms Khanh concluded. “It is about leaving no one behind. It is about social justice and about involving more people than before.”
To that end FES Vietnam and GreenID aim to distribute their findings and get more people and organizations involved throughout Vietnam with a series of trainings and conferences in Hanoi, and throughout the highly climate-vulnerable Mekong Delta region.
###
Daniel Mann is project assistant at the FES Ghana Office in Accra and deals mostly with youth and trade union related issues. He was visiting the FES Climate and Energy project in Hanoi for several weeks as part of his training. For more information on the FES climate project in Asia, visit the FES Vietnam website and follow their daily updates on the Facebook fan page.
Interview with Gotelind Alber on a genuine gender-sensitive climate transition for Southeast Asia.
A look at the county’s persistently popular but problematic power source.
At a recent workshop in Vietnam, stakeholders explore how to bring together the work on climate governance and the implementation of the Paris…
On the example of Vietnam, this publication looks at the political and social factors that drive—but also hamper—socially just energy transitions in…
Bringing together the work of our offices in the region, we provide you with the latest news on current debates, insightful research and innovative visual outputs on geopolitics, climate and energy, gender justice, trade unions and social-ecological transformation.
South Korea's militaristic culture is fuelled by a history of conflict and maintained by a tradition of jingoistic, state-sponsored celebrations.... More
In the face of a growing climate crisis, the military industry is promoting "eco-friendly" weapons and technologies, but are these innovations truly... More
Vietnam’s rapid urbanization is bringing both opportunities and challenges. Among the most significant challenges is the preservation of cultural... More
This site uses third-party website tracking technologies to provide and continually improve our services, and to display advertisements according to users' interests. I agree and may revoke or change my consent at any time with effect for the future.
These technologies are required to activate the core functionality of the website.
This is an self hosted web analytics platform.
Data Purposes
This list represents the purposes of the data collection and processing.
Technologies Used
Data Collected
This list represents all (personal) data that is collected by or through the use of this service.
Legal Basis
In the following the required legal basis for the processing of data is listed.
Retention Period
The retention period is the time span the collected data is saved for the processing purposes. The data needs to be deleted as soon as it is no longer needed for the stated processing purposes.
The data will be deleted as soon as they are no longer needed for the processing purposes.
These technologies enable us to analyse the use of the website in order to measure and improve performance.
This is a video player service.
Processing Company
Google Ireland Limited
Google Building Gordon House, 4 Barrow St, Dublin, D04 E5W5, Ireland
Location of Processing
European Union
Data Recipients
Data Protection Officer of Processing Company
Below you can find the email address of the data protection officer of the processing company.
https://support.google.com/policies/contact/general_privacy_form
Transfer to Third Countries
This service may forward the collected data to a different country. Please note that this service might transfer the data to a country without the required data protection standards. If the data is transferred to the USA, there is a risk that your data can be processed by US authorities, for control and surveillance measures, possibly without legal remedies. Below you can find a list of countries to which the data is being transferred. For more information regarding safeguards please refer to the website provider’s privacy policy or contact the website provider directly.
Worldwide
Click here to read the privacy policy of the data processor
https://policies.google.com/privacy?hl=en
Click here to opt out from this processor across all domains
https://safety.google/privacy/privacy-controls/
Click here to read the cookie policy of the data processor
https://policies.google.com/technologies/cookies?hl=en
Storage Information
Below you can see the longest potential duration for storage on a device, as set when using the cookie method of storage and if there are any other methods used.
This service uses different means of storing information on a user’s device as listed below.
This cookie stores your preferences and other information, in particular preferred language, how many search results you wish to be shown on your page, and whether or not you wish to have Google’s SafeSearch filter turned on.
This cookie measures your bandwidth to determine whether you get the new player interface or the old.
This cookie increments the views counter on the YouTube video.
This is set on pages with embedded YouTube video.
This is a service for displaying video content.
Vimeo LLC
555 West 18th Street, New York, New York 10011, United States of America
United States of America
Privacy(at)vimeo.com
https://vimeo.com/privacy
https://vimeo.com/cookie_policy
This cookie is used in conjunction with a video player. If the visitor is interrupted while viewing video content, the cookie remembers where to start the video when the visitor reloads the video.
An indicator of if the visitor has ever logged in.
Registers a unique ID that is used by Vimeo.
Saves the user's preferences when playing embedded videos from Vimeo.
Set after a user's first upload.
This is an integrated map service.
Gordon House, 4 Barrow St, Dublin 4, Ireland
https://support.google.com/policies/troubleshooter/7575787?hl=en
United States of America,Singapore,Taiwan,Chile
http://www.google.com/intl/de/policies/privacy/
