NEWS

At the COP26 climate summit in early November, Vietnam signed a climate change agreement to join countries in halting the approval and construction of new coal-fueled power plant projects and completely withdrawing from coal in the next 10 years, according to foreign media reports.

Coal's share of Vietnam's total power generation has increased from 18% to about 50% over the past 10 years. Vietnam was once considered the most important market for coal consumption in Southeast Asia, for which the signing of this agreement took everyone by surprise.

In addition to this, the Philippines and Indonesia have signed pledges to reduce emissions, although neither country has been committed to stopping building new coal-fueled power plants, and the Philippines has not set a timetable for retiring coal. Indonesia, on the other hand, has said it will consider accelerating the phase-out of coal power by 2040 if it receives financial and technical assistance from other countries.

"Although these countries' coal phase-out policies are not as radical as Vietnam's, they are willing to do that if they receive international support." said Caroline Chua, an analyst at Bloomberg New Energy Finance. It is reported that the Philippines and Indonesia have now established an Energy Transition Mechanism (ETM) partnership with the Asian Development Bank, which will invest billions of dollars to develop clean energy and help the coal retirement plan.