Following a call to share more non-Western themes, here is an article from local Vietnamese newspaper Viet Nam News, Saturday’s edition. Reading between the lines is always key here, so I thought you might appreciate this piece.
Vietnam faces a power shortage this spring and summer. The solution is coal and more coal. There is indeed a new power development plan (PDP8) that puts a focus on green energy, but only relatively speaking, coal will grow until 2030. It’s growth that matters. The G7 wants green growth, but that’s only a side-hustle for the government, it seems. Wind and solar energy have a hard time, enforcement on the ground is falling behind.
So the question for this sub might be how to make green energy the only alternative.
I know what you getting at, my post was a little bit off. Not trying to give fuel to deniers. But I somehow did.
Still, it’s an uphill battle. And there is so much potential in the region: many sunny hours, a long coast.
It basicly comes from the ironic opposite of the “why would we not increase emissions, when all the rich countries have high emissions”, which is used in poorer countries. It basicly boils down to, "why should we reduce emissions, when poor countries just increase theirs and emissions globally stay the same or even increase. There is some truth to the argument, as both Europe and the US have actually reduced emissions and most of the emissions growth comes from poor countries growing their economy and with it energy consumption including fossil fuels. Welcome to fossil fuel PR.