AFD chief visits Vietnam to boost energy transition investment

Rioux, also Chairman of the International Development Finance Club (IDFC), visited Vietnam Feb. 17 and 18 as preparation for the Summit for a New Global Financial Compact scheduled for June 2023 in Paris, according to an AFD press release.

The visit was to discuss energy transition issues and identify opportunities to accelerate the investments needed to meet Vietnam’s ambitious climate commitments, the release added.

Vietnam has committed to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050 and strengthened its ambitions by announcing a Just Energy Transition Partnership (JET-P) with a group of international partners to financially support such a strategy.

The JET-P was signed between Vietnam and the Group of Seven industrialized nations, which are Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the U.K., as well as the European Union; and Norway at the 45th ASEAN – EU Summit in Belgium in December.

The nations pledged to provide Vietnam with $15.5 billion in the next three to five years to help the country accomplish its net-zero emission target in 2050.

Vietnam will have to work with the Western partners next year to build a plan to raise the financial resources.

“Vietnam has a strong ambition in terms of energy and low- carbon transition and I am honored and proud of the partnership we have been building with the country’s authorities and institutions for nearly 30 years,” Rioux said during the visit.

The partnership aims to bring forward Vietnam’s peak greenhouse gas emissions by five years to 2030, cut emission in its power industry by 30%, or from 240 million tons of CO2 to 170 million tons, by 2030.

It also aims to reduce Vietnam’s coal-fired power capacity from the planned 37 GW to 30.2 GW, and boost the ratio of renewable energy in the nation’s electricity output from the current 36% to 47% in 2030.