Vietnam is facing multiple threats in the 21st century. Rapid economic development at the expense of the environment has resulted in serious environmental pollution. Increasing reliance on fossil fuels for the power sector, universal use of private transport, and poor urban planning has caused a great pressure on air quality, water quality, and public health. Vietnam belongs to a group of countries with the worst air quality in the world (WHO). In addition, urbanization has been taking place very rapidly, with a rising flow of people from rural areas to urban cities to find jobs, whereas urban planning and supporting infrastructure is lacking behind. These problems are especially severe in the Mekong River Delta (MRD), where the low terrain and susceptibility to climate change adds an extra dimension of challenge to its long-term development prospect. Exposure to sea level rise, saline intrusion, annual floods, and extreme weather has been a constant drag on the regional economy whose agriculture and natural resources exploitation remains an integral part of local livelihoods. These developments are not helped by transboundary cooperation, especially regarding the construction of a cascade of hydropower plants in the upstream Mekong River and agricultural expansion in the Lower Mekong Basin (LMB). It is of utmost importance to identify the most serious challenges facing the region, analyze, and communicate them to the public, policy makers, and other stakeholders to take proper actions.

Vietnam is among the 10 countries in the world most vulnerable to the impact of climate change. The Mekong Delta is most susceptible due to the resonance of many factors, naturally from a flat terrain and very low elevation of only a few meters above the sea level, to an agrarian economy depending on water flows from outside the country. The greatest risks to this region come from sea level rise, erosion and salinity intrusion, flooding and water shortages. In addition, upstream development involving the construction of many hydropower dams in the main-stream and tributaries of the Mekong River may further change the water flows, exacerbating water shortage and the exploitation of groundwater, which leads to land subsidence and saltwater intrusion in the Delta. Saline intrusion will affect the productivity of arable land, increasing the cost of agricultural production and negatively affecting the livelihoods of millions of local habitants. Coastal erosion is becoming more severe, accompanied by the destruction of coastal ecosystems. Coastal protection structures, including embankments, ports and dikes, will be subject to increased stresses due to the loss of protective mangroves, as observed in many coastal provinces. As fresh water becomes scarce, farmers increasingly depend on groundwater extraction, exacerbating land subsidence. Industrial clusters will also be severely affected by climate change because sea level rise and seasonal tides will flood most industrial zones, raising the cost of production, transportation, and maintenance of critical infrastructure. Increasing temperatures also cause energy consumption to rise for cooling; meanwhile, energy production and distribution may be negatively affected, potentially subjecting the country to a national energy security risk.

Facing a double-digit growth in electricity demand in the past two decades, the Government of Vietnam has tried to develop many energy resources, both traditional fossil fuels and renewable energy. Coal power remains an important part in the latest power development plan proposal, the PDP8. The Mekong Delta is expected to house several additional large thermal powerplants. If all goes as planned, the environmental impact will be severe. Thermal power emissions include CO2, a greenhouse effect, with a long-life cycle in the atmosphere. Particle pollution, primarily incombustible fine dust including PM2.5 and PM10, is considered to be most harmful to human health. Meanwhile, the MRD have all the necessary conditions to develop a clean energy sector. The MRD is endowed with significant renewable resources (solar, wind, and biomass) ideal for the development of an energy industry cluster. In addition, the Delta is suitable to develop a gas energy market. Nonetheless, there remains significant challenges to develop a full-fledged energy sector in this region. Power projects are capital-intensive. The MRD does not have a strong vocational education and university system to supply highly trained personnel. The region also needs significant investment in infrastructure such as road and water transport. Road transport infrastructure in the MRD currently lags far behind the rest of the country. Its waterway network, which plays a critical role in the agricultural sector, has also largely failed to serve as a connection between the delta and the country’s production hub in the Southeast. The MRD’s transmission system requires significant upgrades and new lines to connect generation sites to consumption centres. At the same time, improvements on electricity pricing policies, the power purchase agreement, and energy market reforms are needed in order to increase the share of renewable energy while ensuring the reliability of power system in the context of the decreasing role of hydroelectricity and imbalanced regional load growths.