Vietnam’s government has announced plans to build 90 coal-fired plants over the next 15 years even while being listed as among the top 11 most vulnerable nation’s to climate change in the world, according to Eco-Business.

Vietnam says the coal plants are necessary because the economically booming nation has undergone frequent energy shortages, recently exacerbated by drought that diminished the output of Vietnam’s hydroelectric dams. The government has stated it will put in $83 billion to build the coal plants, which will double Vietnam’s energy production by 2020, altogether providing over 100,000 megawatts.

In March 2010, the World Bank, Denmark, France, and Japan pledged $790 million to Vietnam for climate change mitigation.

Coal fired energy is the among the world’s most carbon intensive energy sources. In fact, two 2009 reports in Nature found that if the world wants to stay within ‘safe levels’ of climate change, i.e. average temperature not rising 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, then coal must be abandoned altogether unless carbon capture and storage (CCS) proves effective.

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