Every year climate change causes billions of dollars in damage to our country.
At the workshop "Vietnam's Green Vision and Typical Stories" held on November 22, many experts shared their visions for sustainable development and green transformation. Dr. Tran Dinh Thien, former Director of the Vietnam Economic Institute, said that economic recovery after the Covid-19 pandemic in the direction of greening is a strong trend in the world. Vietnam needs to focus on pursuing this trend for sustainable development, becoming an upper-middle-income country by 2030 and a high-income country by 2045.
Dr. Tran Dinh Thien shares about the damage caused by climate change to our country every year.
However, to achieve this goal, our country needs to have an average growth rate that surpasses the 30-year period from 1990 to 2020. At the same time, Vietnam must overcome a resource-intensive economy. Therefore, it is necessary to transform the model from a development model based on the exploitation and export of raw resources to a development model that can manage resource capital more sustainably.
In addition, rapid economic growth, urbanization and industrialization have generated large amounts of greenhouse gas emissions, which have increased significantly over the past decades. In 2020, Vietnam was one of the economies with the highest emissions in Southeast Asia.
Meanwhile, Vietnam is one of the countries most vulnerable to climate change in the world, ranked 127/182 countries. "World Bank research shows that in the period 2011 - 2022, Vietnam lost more than 10 billion USD due to the impact of climate change. The scale of these losses is expected to increase rapidly. The situation is aggravated by poor planning and unsustainable management of resources," said Mr. Thien.
According to Mr. Thien, climate change causes great damage to people and property, and increases rapidly in each period and each year: it is estimated that in the period 2001 - 2010, climate change caused nearly 80,000 billion VND in damage; in the period 2011 - 2022, it caused more than 245,000 billion VND in damage. It is estimated that the total damage caused by natural disasters and climate change in the period 2011 - 2022 has increased more than 3 times compared to the period 2001 - 2010.
Many delegates from businesses and state agencies attended the workshop.
The Government has issued national strategies on green growth for each different development period. Most recently, in October 2021, the Prime Minister approved the National Strategy on Green Growth for the period 2021 - 2030, with a vision to 2050, towards a green, carbon-neutral economy, contributing to limiting global temperature increase according to 4 main goals: reducing greenhouse gas emissions intensity; greening the economy; greening lifestyles and promoting sustainable consumption; greening the transition process on the principles of equality, inclusion, and enhancing resilience.
Notably, at COP26, Vietnam strongly committed to achieving net zero emissions by 2050. To achieve this goal, it is necessary to make strong efforts to change policies, technology, and behavior; accelerate the economic restructuring in the energy and innovation sectors; promote international cooperation to attract green capital, green technology, and access green markets for green products, etc.
There is still a lot of room for green development but there are many challenges.
Mr. Nguyen Cong Thinh, Deputy Director of the Department of Science, Technology and Environment (Ministry of Construction), said that in Vietnam, according to data reported by Eurocham experts at the Green Economy Forum 2023, construction works account for 39% of energy consumption, 12% of water consumption, and about 38% of carbon emissions.
Mr. Thinh said that there is still a lot of room for green development in our country.
Green buildings have been developed in Vietnam for about 15 years. According to reported data, by the end of the third quarter of 2023, Vietnam had 305 green buildings with a total certified floor area of nearly 7.5 million m2 . Compared to over 100 million m2 of floor area for housing and offices each year, the number of green buildings in the past 15 years is too small. This also means that the development potential in this field is still very large.
At the workshop, talking about the existing challenges facing Vietnam in the green transition process, Mr. Tran Hoai Nam, Deputy General Director of HDBank emphasized two main points.
Firstly, in terms of capital, according to the World Bank, by 2040, Vietnam will need 368 billion USD to achieve NET ZERO. But according to the State Bank, Vietnam's green credit balance as of June 30 only reached over 528,000 billion VND. On the other hand, international financial capital for green development is no longer cheap. Currently, the interest rates of the FED and European countries are very high, higher than Vietnam's, the situation has never been like the present.
The second is the capacity to innovate with green development. This includes infrastructure and production conditions; training of human resources and workers; governance standards, and information disclosure standards. This leads to the fact that not all businesses are ready for the transformation process, especially in terms of investment capital and operations.
"However, with challenges there are always opportunities and Vietnam can still access preferential capital sources. Many large financial institutions in the world and Vietnamese commercial banks have committed to supporting and continuously increasing the limit of green credit funding sources," said Mr. Nam.
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