EuroCham vice chairman Tomaso Andreatta said Vietnam should gradually stop the construction of coal-fired power plants as they were dramatically increasing the country’s greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs) and causing environmental pollution.
“Mny nations have stopped using coal for operating their power plants because of concerns over the environmental risks. Vietnam should follow suit,” Andreatta told Vietnam’s government at an international conference on clean energy in Asia in early July 2016.
Mekong Partnership for the Environment The Government of Vietnam requires Environmental Impact Assessments (EIAs) for all large-scale infrastructure development projects and supports public participation in the EIA process. However, a new study shows that women and other marginalized people are often not engaged effectively in the EIA. Mekong Partnership for the Environment (MPE) supported the […]
A research work by the National University of Singapore on the impact of the Manwan hydropower dam in China in the Mekong Delta showed that 160 million tons of sediment flowed to the delta each year in the past, before the dam was built.
Since the dam was put into operation, the figure has dropped to 75 million tons.
IFC and Armstrong, with a combined stake of 36 percent, will take a 16 and 20 percent equity stake in GEC, respectively. For both it is their first investment in Vietnam’s power sector. The investment will help the company expand its hydropower portfolio and invest in other renewable energy segments, such as wind and solar power.
Based in the Central Highland province of Pleiku, GEC joined the Thanh Thanh Cong Group in 2013. With charter capital of 715 billion VND (34 million USD), GEC was one of the largest private sector hydropower players in Vietnam, with 84.4 MW of installed capacity across 15 run-of-the-river small-scale hydro power plants.
Much as the banks of a river play a crucial role in its ecosystem and purity, what runs along two of the Mekong Delta’s major waterways is a series of non-environmentally friendly industrial plants and factories.
Dubbed the country’s rice basket, the Mekong Delta is the region in southwestern Vietnam where the Mekong River approaches and empties into the sea via a vast network of distributaries.
Of those distributaries, the main branches of the Mekong River in Vietnam are the Hau and Tien rivers, which both play a crucial role in the region’s land and climate conditions.
However, along the banks of these two rivers now exist a number of factories, processing plants and industrial parks.
Since 1992 the Asian Development Bank (ADB) initiated the Greater Mekong Sub-region (GMS) Program encompassing the five countries and parts of China. As of 2016, over USD 14 billion has been invested by the ADB. The GMS program is another flagship endeavor by ADB under the strategic pillar entitled “regional economic integration”. Furthermore the GMS Regional Investment Framework (RIF) 2013 – 2022 serves as the master plan for over 200 projects with an estimated investment of about USD 50 billion.1
Civil society-led impact studies on ADB funded GMS projects suggest that groups mostly dependent on natural resources bear the brunt of direct disempowerment from practices such as mining, logging, involuntary resettlement and road-building among others. Once removed from their rights of access to their customary resources, the ADB presupposes that affected communities will invariably integrate into new market-based economies. Most often than not, however this is far from the local reality.
The Party and State will facilitate Vietnamese investment and business in Laos, President Trần Đại Quang said during a working session with Vietnamese investors in Laos yesterday.
He hailed the efforts of businesses and of the Association of Vietnamese Investors in Laos to overcome difficulties and to ensure their projects are implemented on schedule. He also asked the association and relevant ministries to co-ordinate with the Lao side to better facilitate business operations, with the focus on energy, mineral exploration, exploitation and processing, agriculture, tourism, finance and banking. And he asked businesses to take more social responsibility to reduce poverty, protect the environment, and ensure social welfare.
THE MEKONG RIVER Commission (MRC) does not have the authority to stop projects even if they have transboundary effects, delegates to the fourth Green Mekong Forum said on Monday, while the Thai Irrigation Department presented a water diversion project to fight poverty.
Around 100 delegates from Mekong River countries and international observers attended the forum in Bangkok to follow the latest developments in infrastructure and water resource management in the Mekong River Region.
Kaeng Khut Khu is a village in Loei province, Thailand. This village is located along the Mekong river and fishing is the main income of local people. But in recent years, it’s very difficult for local people go to fishing as the water levels go up and down constantly. Besides, the fish are very small now. There aren’t as many big fish as in the past.
In addition it is known that this village is also attractive for camping along the Mekong River. But now no tourists want to go there for camping as the water levels of the river could increase suddenly and cause flooding and impacts to tourism development. So now the local people of this village cannot get income from fishing and tourism. They have to find another job such as worker or seller.
Attending the event were Richard Cronin, Director of the Southeast Asia Program at the Stimson Center; Aaron Salzberg, Special Coordinator for Water Resources at the Bureau of Oceans, Environment, and Science Affairs at the Department of State; Todd Johnson, Forestry and Climate Change Advisor for USAID Asia’s Office of Technical Services; and Brian Eyler, Deputy Director of the Southeast Asia Program at the Stimson Center.
Panelists pointed out the main reasons for the most serious drought and saline intrusion in the past 100 years in the Mekong Delta.
