US Presidential Envoy urges Vietnam to abandon coal power

*Mr. John Kerry (center) during his visit to Vietnam on February 22-25*

The US President’s special envoy, Mr. John Kerry, urged Vietnam to abandon coal power, at the same time affirming the US commitment to help Vietnam achieve this goal.

According to Vietnam’s state-controlled media, Mr. John Kerry said these things during his visit to Vietnam from February 22-25 in his event speech and also during a meeting with President Nguyen Xuan Phuc on the afternoon of February 23.

According to Zing newspaper, speaking while attending an event to announce the Innovation Challenge Fund (IFC) sponsored by the US Agency for International Development (USAID), Mr. Kerry said: “Vietnam has made important commitments (at COP26). The United States looks forward to joining hands with you to facilitate and accelerate the clean energy transition.”

At the 26th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP26) held in November last year in the UK, Vietnam committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions to zero by 2050.

According to the state-controlled media, during a meeting with President Nguyen Xuan Phuc, Mr. John Kerry also highly appreciated Vietnam’s commitments at COP26 and affirmed that the US will help Vietnam review and adjust its strategy and planning towards the goal of achieving net-zero emissions by 2050, including Power Master Plan VIII, promotes the strong development of renewable energy sources such as offshore wind power, solar power, and at the same time considers formulating policies to eliminate quit coal power.

According to the press release of the US State Department, Mr. John Kerry during this visit, in addition to meeting with Vietnamese Government officials, also met with representatives of civil society and business leaders to build unity of the most important actions related to climate change and accelerating the transition to a clean energy economy.

Mr. Kerry’s visit comes at a time when Vietnam has just arrested and jailed a series of civil society activists, including Ms. Nguyen Thi Khanh, Director of the Green Innovation Development Center (GreenID), with tax evasion charges.

Ms. Khanh and GreenID have repeatedly spoken out against the development of coal-fired power plants in Vietnam.

Thoibao.de (Translated)

Source: https://www.rfa.org/vietnamese/news/vietnamnews/us-president-special-envoy-visits-vn-02232022065338.html

Millions of THANKS!

Millions of people have watched our news and programs. More and more people choose to support us. Because there is an urgent need for an independent, critical voice in the media for Vietnam.

Your support will help everyone to have free access to thoibao.de. Because we consider the press not only a communication product but also a beneficial activity for the community.

There have been tens of millions of people every month who do not have to pay any money to read news on thoibao.de, but as you know, we have to invest a lot in order to have quality journalism. That’s why we need your support.

You can send your support as follow

1/ Via Paypal, Visa, Mastercard, America Experess, Sepa Lastschrift: