Vietnam needs more than US$30 billion for green growth from now to 2020, affirmed Dr Pham Hoang Mai, Director of Department of Science, Education, Natural Resources and Environment, Ministry of Planning and Investment at the workshop “Accessing Finance for Green Growth at the Southeast Asia” recently organised by the Ministry of Planning and Investment and the Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI) in Hanoi.
Dr Pham Hoang Mai also stated that the Prime Minister recently approved the National Action Plan on Green Growth period 2014-2020. Accordingly, the green growth programme will include four main topics, 12 groups and 66 specific tasks. Four key topics are: construction of mechanisms and plans for green growth in localities; reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and promotion of using renewable energy; implementation of greening of production and greening of lifestyles.
In addition, the action plan for green growth will contain specific activities such as establishing a guidance framework to integrate the green growth into the planning of local socio-economic development; setting up projects and implementing pilot small-scale green growth model in some exemplary provinces or cities; supporting small and medium manufacturing and services enterprises to upgrade technology and improve management in order to use energy efficiently.
Dr Pham Hoang Mai said that in order to reduce carbon emissions in the areas with high risk of contamination such as steel, transportation, cement, paper and pulp, Vietnam needs a huge capital of US$30 billion from now to 2020. Plus, the national strategy for green growth pointed out that during the last 10 years, problems resulting from climate changes caused damages estimated about 2 - 6 percent of GDP of Vietnam.
Another alarming problem is the rate of Vietnam’s emissions growth is higher than the rate of GDP growth. Therefore, Vietnam forces to set out target to minimize greenhouse gas emissions by 8 to 10 percent compared with 2010 and to reduce energy consumption per unit of GDP by 1 to 1.5 percent per year in period 2011 - 2020.
Experts at the conference also noted that this is the right time for Vietnam to ask for support and experience of the international community. In addition, this will also be an effective tool for the Government to mobilize resources from bilateral and multilateral donors, from development funds worldwide, as well as to mobilize investment resources from individuals. The Government, thereby, can successfully implement the national strategy for green growth.
Regarding this issue, Mr Imran Ahmad, GGGI’s Director of East Asia and Pacific recommended that Vietnam need to take more consideration in determining the investment objectives of both state-owned enterprises and private ones in order to build an institutional framework for green growth. Particularly, the Government should focus on promoting the participation of the private enterprise system as well as raising the awareness of people and social organisations on environmental protection by administrative measures or heavier sanctions.
Moreover, to efficiently implement the solutions mentioned above, the Government also needs to have a mechanism to supervise and evaluate the supporting policies for green growth to meet practical demands. Following that, the Government should invest more in feasible projects, at the same time, skip infeasible ones. The most important goal of the green growth strategy is to support the process of restructuring and perfecting economic mechanisms, greening of production, research and applying modern technology in order to minimize the effects of climate changes that would cause the most severe consequences for Vietnam, said Mr Imran Ahmah.
Anh Phuong
Vietnamese
