> The economics only changed recently and infrastructure lasts a long time

This needs investment also. An investment poorer people cannot or do not want to do. It is reasonable that when someone gives up a couple of things because that person is rich (rich as in a person in the developed world) the sacrifice is more or less acceptable.

Now change environment and think that these sacrifices are way worse. Even worse than that: that has more implications in conservative cultures where, whether you like it or not, showing "muscle" (wealth) is socially important for them to reach other soccial layers that will make their lives easier.

But giving up those things is probably a very bad choice for their living.

America cannot be compared to South East Asia economically speaking, for example. So the comparison of the coal centrals is not even close.

A salary in Vietnam is maybe 15 million VND for many people. With that you can hardly live in some areas. It is around 600 usd.

Just my two cents.

> This needs investment also. An investment poorer people cannot or do not want to do.

The general premise of investments is that you end up with fewer resources by not doing them.

It now costs less to install a new solar or wind farm than to continue using an existing coal plant, much less if you were considering building a new coal plant, and that includes the cost of capital, i.e. the interest you have to pay to borrow the money for the up-front investment.

Poorer countries would be at a slight disadvantage if they have to pay higher than average interest rates to borrow money, but they also have the countervailing advantage of having lower labor and real estate costs and the net result is that it still doesn't make sense for anybody to continue to use coal for any longer than it takes to build the replacement.

It just takes more than zero days to replace all existing infrastructure.

Unlike the US, Vietnam is a net importer of fuel. It imports over 40 million tons of coal per year:

https://statbase.org/data/vnm-coal-imports/

It also started importing liquid natural gas in 2023.

But it has abundant sunlight, access to low cost Chinese solar panels that will produce electricity for decades instead of being burned once, and a substantial domestic photovoltaic manufacturing industry of its own.

"Renewable Energy Investments in Vietnam in 2024 – Asia’s Next Clean Energy Powerhouse" (June 2024)

https://energytracker.asia/renewable-energy-investments-in-v...

In 2014, the share of renewable energy in Vietnam was just 0.32%. In 2015, only 4 megawatts (MW) of installed solar capacity for power generation was available. However, within five years, investment in solar energy, for example, soared.

As of 2020, Vietnam had over 7.4 gigawatts (GW) of rooftop solar power connected to the national grid. These renewable energy numbers surpassed all expectations. It marked a 25-fold increase in installed capacity compared to 2019’s figures.

In 2021, the data showed that Vietnam now has 16.5 GW of solar power. This was accompanied by its green energy counterpart wind at 11.8 GW. A further 6.6 GW is expected in late 2021 or 2022. Ambitiously, the government plans to further bolster this by adding 12 GW of onshore and offshore wind by 2025.

These growth rates are actually much faster than growth rates in the US.

The transition is happening rapidly in Pakistan: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/mar/17/pakistan...

That's why it will require a functional government who can use taxes responsibly to make the technology affordable to everyone. The US had a pretty good start until one man decided to stop and try to reverse any progress made.