Envoy John Kerry highly appreciates VinFast’s electric vehicles investment in the US

In a narrow press interview on September 9 in Hanoi, the US President’s special envoy for climate change issues, Mr. John Kerry, welcomed VinFast’s electric vehicle investment in the US and commented on climate change as well as energy transition in Vietnam.

Vietnam needs more renewable electricity transmission system

Coming to Vietnam this time, Mr. John Kerry visited and worked in Ho Chi Minh City and Ben Tre. He noticed that the lives of local people are being greatly affected by climate change.

“In Ho Chi Minh City, tidal flooding has major impacts on infrastructure as well as people. Currently, we are also making great efforts to implement solutions to improve adaptation to climate change, supply chain adaptation is really a huge issue,” Mr. Kerry shared and paid special attention to Ho Chi Minh City and Ben Tre are the two localities most negatively affected.

US President’s special envoy on climate change issues, Mr. John Kerry during a press conference

Assessing the development of clean energy sources in Vietnam, Mr. Kerry analyzed that Vietnam has had success in creating good conditions for many renewable power plants to develop. However, the former US Secretary of State said that Vietnam needs to pay more attention to building an efficient power distribution system to avoid the situation where electricity is produced but not delivered to where it is needed, causing waste and shortage of electricity.

“There are many wind power plants to provide renewable energy for Vietnam in Ninh Thuan, Binh Thuan, and Ben Tre, but it has not been fully utilized because Vietnam does not have good transmission systems”, Mr. Kerry noted.

Mr. Kerry also shared that this is something Vietnam needs to improve and accelerate the construction of power transmission systems because it is extremely important because it cannot be transmitted anywhere, it will not work.

The US is ready to support Vietnam in implementing COP26 commitments

Responding to a question from Thanh Nien Newspaper about the US’s support for Vietnam in implementing its commitments at COP26. Mr. John Kerry affirmed that the US side tries to support Vietnam in many different ways. If Vietnam commits to net zero emissions at COP26, the current electricity supply system is not enough to meet this goal, the US side will try to support Vietnam in taking these steps to help Vietnam can actualize the stated goal.

Mr. John Kerry and Mr. Jack Levine, Climate Director at US International Finance Corporation (DFC) 

Mr. Kerry shared that the US delegation will have meetings with the Prime Minister, the Ministry of Industry and Trade, and the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment to discuss the implementation of new technologies for the energy transition. In addition, the US side can jointly support Vietnam in mobilizing international financial resources and speeding up the energy transition with the latest technologies.

“The United States and Vietnam have had a very strong partnership over the past 10 years and want to strengthen it into a strategic partnership,” said John Kerry.

Also in the meeting, Mr. Jack Levine, climate director of the US International Finance Corporation (DFC), said that the group is trying to promote the investment of the private sector, which means doing business. Working with businesses to accelerate the supply chain of clean energy in solar farms, wind farms and projects on energy storage batteries.

“We also worked with HCMC about eight weeks ago and met a lot of companies,” said Mr. Levine.

Welcoming VinFast to invest in electric vehicles in the US

John Kerry said the world is facing a global climate crisis, the way we power our cars, fuel our homes, need to come up with a cleaner and different source of energy. Mr. Kerry said that he himself currently rides an electric car, which is highly reliable, very quiet and good for the environment.

The US welcomes and welcomes investment businesses like Vinfast to invest in electric vehicle production in the US

Electric vehicles are part of an energy transition, which will take some time to build and research. Mr. Kerry gave the example that Ford and General Motos are spending hundreds of billions of dollars to produce electric vehicles. In Europe and the US, internal combustion cars usually have a shelf life of 10-12 years, after which it will need to switch to electric vehicles. Over the decades, by 2050, we will strive to achieve net zero emissions.

Therefore, Mr. John Kerry said that the US welcomes and welcomes businesses like VinFast to invest in electric vehicle production in general and green technology in particular.

“I think it’s a very good thing that everyone is going to help supply the world and there’s a lot of room for us to build and in doing so it’s going to create a lot of jobs. So they (VinFast) do it very well,” said John Kerry.

@ Thanhnien