Analysis: Vietnam’s leadership flex shows how to drive electricity reform
Dealing with climate change should be a no-brainer, right? To paraphrase Greta Thunberg, the science is done and only denial, ignorance and inaction remain. Or is that really all?
We live in a world of sovereign states. In none of them is it an easy matter for political leaders to require short-run sacrifices to achieve a larger and far-off goal — particularly if achieving that goal depends in large part on the leaders of other nations holding up their end of a multilateral agreement.
In a story for Mongabay several years ago, I quoted the World Bank’s then-president, Jim Yong Kim: “If Vietnam goes forward with 40GW of coal, if the entire region implements the coal-based plans right now, I think we are finished. That would spell disaster for us and our planet.”
Kim can sleep better now. This story is about a remarkable reorientation of Vietnam’s power development plans that flows from a top-level decision to implement fundamental reforms. To a climate scientist, economist or engineer, these reforms may seem long overdue and obvious. In the abstract and for the most part, that’s true, but it misses the biggest part of this story: that Vietnam appears to have found the political will to force structural change.
David Brown
