Danish ambassador to Vietnam John Nielsen, last week said the Danish government would provide $135 million in official development assistance (ODA) to Vietnam in 2011-2012 with focus on green growth.
“It is important for Denmark to ensure that green growth is increasingly linked to sustainable development, but also a business opportunity. Denmark will focus its ODA in Vietnam even more on meeting such challenges as climate change and increase energy efficiency, while at the same time establishing commercial partnerships between Danish and Vietnamese companies,” Nielsen said. He said energy cooperation would be focused in the two countries’ relationship in the coming years, as it would help Vietnam to pursue a green economy.
Also at the Global Green Growth Forum, initiated and hosted by the Danish government, developing countries like Vietnam, which are forecast to be among a few nations in the world most affected by climate change, were highlighted as beginning to pursue a green economy.
“It is a correct direction. Each of us has to be responsible to make the earth greener. Building a green economy must be a long-term target,” said United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon.
“Greening the economy offers major growth opportunities as well as environmental and social benefits, including the creation of new jobs, and is vital to solving common global challenges such as combating climate change and promoting sustainable development,” he said.
Martin Lidegaard, Danish Minister for Climate, Energy and Building, told VIR that Vietnam’s building a green economy should result from strong commitments from the country’s highest leaders, who must create favourable private sector conditions, including foreign investors and enterprises, to get involved in a wide range of sectors and join the government’s policies on energy efficiency and climate change.
“Like other nations, Vietnam should also boost green transition in such sectors as energy production and consumption, transport, water, agriculture and industry production processes,” he said.
Young Sook Yoo, Korea’s Minister of Environment, said his nation’s model of green growth, which was cited as one of the most effective green growth examples, was ready to help developing nations like Vietnam via capital assistance, technology transfer, energy efficiency and responding to climate change.
At a recent Hanoi-based Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) Green Growth Forum, Deputy Prime Minister Vu Van Ninh said: “Vietnam is set to pursue rapid and sustainable development, while promoting economic growth in parallel with social progress, justice and environmental protection. We are also working on a draft strategy framework on green development for 2011-2020 with a vision to 2030.”
According to the United Nations Development Programme, Vietnam’s per capita greenhouse gas (GHG) emission volume remained far lower than that in many developed nations. But, it sharply augmented, from 0.3 tonnes in 1990 to 1.2 tonnes in 2007, when the world’s average per capita GHG emission volume was 4.4 tonnes, the US (20.6 tonnes), Russia (10.6 tonnes), United Kingdom (9.8 tonnes), France (6 tonnes) and China (3.8 tonnes).
