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Japan, S Korea run with Vietnam coal plant despite climate pledges

18 Comments
By GEORGE FREY

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The country also recently unveiled plans to boost renewable energy and phase out petrol cars in a bid to reach its new goal for carbon neutrality by 2050. South Korea has also made a similar pledge this year.

But Mitsubishi building coal fired plants in Vietnam is not helping the environment, is it?

5 ( +6 / -1 )

Disgraceful - Japan should be ashamed of itself for letting it's so called leaders continue their support and pandering of the dirty and destructive fossil fuel industry.

Weak uninformed leadership.

5 ( +9 / -4 )

The Japanese consumer is misinformed about their lifestyle choices especially when it comes to the environment.

When Japanese place their plastic in the ‘recycling’ bins they assume it will be reused.

Not at all.

It is either burned or sent to China etc

Very little is recycled in Japan.

3 ( +5 / -2 )

Aging leaders in Japan and Korea, actually all the globe's baby boom leaders and the baby boomers in general will be seen by succeeding generations as among the most selfish people to ever have lived. The baby boomers are so focused on their personal bank accounts and their 'get it while you can' (Janis Joplin) attitude that they ignore the health of their children and all children to follow.

Many baby boomers, at least those with a tiny ability to understand what the majority of scientists report, are aware that continuing to burn baby burn huge amounts of fossil fuels is further contributing to the damages caused by previous generations that also burned, burned burned, but they just don't care.

Many of these selfish baby boomers trust reports written by a minority of scientists funded by the globe's major oil corporations plus their ruling class owners and investors, including those reports funded and coming from Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Russia and elsewhere.

1 ( +3 / -2 )

It shows the Japanese government is not very serious about complying with the Paris agreement and mitigating CO2 emissions," she said.

Japan cares only about itself, and pretends that it wants to help and develop other countries.

5 ( +7 / -2 )

As long as so many governments are literally owned by fossil fuel industries around the world, they will always make these kind of decisions, always choose the bad (for the planet and future generations) option, always look at the short term (the next election, donations, etc). Sadly, Japan is no different.

0 ( +3 / -3 )

"Japan cares only about itself, and pretends that it wants to help and develop other countries."

yeah right, as if the west really cares about other countries.

The UK, along with other countries in the west, has long been meeting its recycling targets by simply shipping plastic waste overseas. 

https://eco-age.com/magazine/waste-colonialism-how-uk-exports-recycling/.

0 ( +3 / -3 )

"So the South Koreans are contributing $1.1 BILLION more than Japan, but somehow the Japanese are the culprits who needs to own up to thier hypocrisy?

Ok so the Japanese are holding themselves to a higher standard than South Korea, that is expected, but to ignore the South Korean 65% contribution to the project is ridiculously biased."

Because that is the western press.

-1 ( +1 / -2 )

The story seems biased against Japan. Why are they not criticizing South Korea as much, considering the coal plant is majority funded by them? Western bullying of Japan, yet again. Becoming tiresome to see the constant anti-Japan stories around the world, and unfair.

Also, why is Koizumi Shinjiro, Environment Minister, criticizing his own gov't? Seems anti-Japanese if you ask me, coming from a future PM. Why not criticize SK too.

-1 ( +2 / -3 )

Before getting too upset about this, we need to look at the economics of the project. It’s probably the cheapest way for Vietnam to generate the power it needs. Given it’s tropical location, there’s unlikely to be sufficient constant wind to justify wind farms. Solar can’t produce the base load power they need either. Hydro may be an option, but they’ve probably already discounted this due to terrain issues. Nuclear and gas are likely too expensive.

It’s all very well for the green movement to criticize this project, but who are you to deny a developing country the energy they need to grow their industry and provide reliable and affordable power to its citizens? Today’s coal plants are far cleaner than the old ones.

-2 ( +2 / -4 )

The story seems biased against Japan. Why are they not criticizing South Korea as much, considering the coal plant is majority funded by them? Western bullying of Japan, yet again. Becoming tiresome to see the constant anti-Japan stories around the world, and unfair.

Also, why is Koizumi Shinjiro, Environment Minister, criticizing his own gov't? Seems anti-Japanese if you ask me, coming from a future PM. Why not criticize SK too.

We are talking about Japanese policy, not South Korean policy. This is Japan Today, not Korea Today.

Any critism of Sourh Korea can be found on a Korean on-line. (Athough interesting that South Korea does not get anywhere near the critism Japan seems to be getting these days).

As for Japan being bullied, the world is against us really is "an.old story".

3 ( +5 / -2 )

Outrageous.

Before getting too upset about this, we need to look at the economics of the project. It’s probably the cheapest way for Vietnam to generate the power it needs. Given it’s tropical location, there’s unlikely to be sufficient constant wind to justify wind farms. Solar can’t produce the base load power they need either. Hydro may be an option, but they’ve probably already discounted this due to terrain issues. Nuclear and gas are likely too expensive.

It’s all very well for the green movement to criticize this project, but who are you to deny a developing country the energy they need to grow their industry and provide reliable and affordable power to its citizens? Today’s coal plants are far cleaner than the old ones.

You are making an awful lot of assumptions there to come to the conclusion this is the only option for Vietnam.

I can’t comment on the economics of this particular plant because I simply don’t know enough about it. But I do know that the costs of renewables have plummetted over the past decade and look to continue doing so, making coal plants uncompetitive in a lot of countries. With storage systems coming online to resolve the problems of relying on them, they would seem a much better long term alternative.

Given these trends it seems Vietnam is likely going to be saddled making loan payments for decades on a coal plant that will be obsolete by 2030. Hardly seems like sound economics to me.

1 ( +3 / -2 )

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2019/06/04/climate-change-coal-now-more-expensive-than-wind-solar-energy/1277637001/

The article in Japan Today states that numerous coal plants are being funded and built, but does not discuss why that is happening.

The article in usatoday provided by the link states that natural gas and renewable energy are not only cleaner than coal, but they are cheaper than coal as an energy source for electricity.

So, at the risk of seeming naive, why are coal plants still being funded and built???

2 ( +2 / -0 )

@1glenn, may I suggest, brown bags, business coming there way, ie; construction, or manufacturing of large parts? cheap shares in the completed project? some people don't give two hoots when it comes to the environment when they are lining their pockets with cash.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

Providing economical power and raising people out of poverty is a good thing.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

It is now possible to combine advances in photovoltaics to achieve 44% power conversion from solar power.It’s the fossils in government that are not current re new technologies.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

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