Over the past two years Vietnam has experienced a 100-fold increase in solar power. Thanks to generous government subsidies, Vietnam now ranks 7th in the world in terms of solar capacity.
So what?
Vietnam’s rapid solar installation isn’t coming from national carbon targets, Vietnam doesn’t have one, it’s happening due to finance. Utilities in Vietnam have been struggling to get loans for new fossil-fuel energy production. Plummeting solar panel costs, coupled with banks actively selecting renewable energy deployment and rejecting fossil energy projects has placed Vietnam on the fast track to a renewable energy future.
Could this signal a tipping point, beyond which finance for legacy power generation (fossil fuels) becomes untenable anywhere in the world? What would it take for global finance to move entirely away from fossil-fuel projects?
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