CREA‘s analysis of air pollution related impacts and costs of proposed coal power projects under Vietnam’s draft Power Development Plan 2021-2030 (PDP VIII) with a vision to 2045.

With growing public concern over climate and health, the draft PDP VIII seeks to pivot Vietnam in the direction of an energy transition driven by renewables. However, the draft also includes a target for an additional 30 gigawatts (GW) of coal projects.

The implications of this target – our research finds – is that 24 proposed coal-fired power projects could come online over the next two decades and cost the country an estimated USD 270 million (VND 6.2 trillion) every year in healthcare and welfare cost, as well as economic productivity losses. We breakdown the national, provincial, and city-level impacts from additional coal projects in 15 Vietnamese provinces both annually and over a 30 year lifetime.

In one of the first of its kind, the report also includes estimates of toxic deposition released on surrounding populations and ecosystems.

Read the report and its findings in English and in Vietnamese.