Last year, during the COP26 climate summit, Vietnam’s Prime Minister Pham Minh Chnh made an unexpected announcement: the country’s goal is to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050. The government also signed the Global Coal to Clean Power Transition declaration, pledging to swiftly scale up renewables and not build any new coal power plants without a moratorium, China Dialogue reported.
This is a significant and unexpected change for Vietnam. Following China, the nation has made significant investments in coal power over the last decade and now has the highest installed coal production among Mekong countries. Vietnam’s eighth power development plan (PDP8), which spanned the years 2021–2030 and depended largely on international investment in non-renewable energy, was unveiled just two months before COP26. By 2030, the PDP8 would have quadrupled coal power output, with more to emerge in the next five years.
Following its COP26 statements, the government requested that the PDP8 be revised by the Ministry of Industry and Trade, albeit an updated draft has yet to be issued.
By 2020, Vietnam’s coal-fired power plants would have produced as much electricity as all other power plants combined. In that year, the industry released around 126 million tonnes of CO2, accounting for over half of all CO2 emissions in Vietnam. In recent years, the country’s emissions have risen, whereas those of its neighboring countries have mainly stayed constant or decreased.
According to figures from Global Energy Monitor, Vietnam’s coal business has attracted at least US$29 billion in foreign funding since 2010. The Mekong Infrastructure Tracker of the Stimson Center offers a similar picture of dependence on foreign funding to develop coal plants: for every 100 MW of coal capacity now in service, 93 MW was built with some international investment.
Cleaner energy, such as gas, solar, and wind, will account for nearly 75% of Vietnam’s total electricity output by 2045, according to the Ministry of Industry and Trade.
Many experts, however, do not believe gas to be “clean energy” or to contribute to net-zero emissions. In the near term, the plentiful methane emitted during gas extraction and burning is 80 times worse than CO2 in terms of the warming effect, according to Browning. According to research issued in October 2021 by Global Energy Monitor, if all planned gas infrastructure in Asia is developed, the goal of reducing global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius will be unlikely to be realized.