ASEAN Beat

Southeast Asia’s Clean Energy Challenge

Recent Features

ASEAN Beat

Southeast Asia’s Clean Energy Challenge

While the region can’t give up on coal for now, there is a lot it can do to get clean.

Southeast Asia’s Clean Energy Challenge
Credit: Wikimedia Commons

December 12 marks the third anniversary of the Paris Agreement, a compact intended to catalyze a global reduction in carbon emissions. Yet all the statistics suggest the problem is getting worse: the latest report from the International Energy Agency (IEA) suggests 2018 is likely to set a new record for carbon emissions. This stat is all the more surprising, and alarming, since 2017 saw record levels of renewable energy installation.

How to explain this contradiction? Well, for one thing, with global populations rising by some 83 million a year, the vast fleet of new renewable facilities aren’t sufficient to meet our planet’s energy demands. Although wind and solar power are making huge gains in the electricity sector, fossil fuels account for exactly the same share of overall energy consumption as they did 30 years ago. Despite the admirable ambitions outlined in Paris, we still can’t afford to ratchet back our energy use.

[...]
Dreaming of a career in the Asia-Pacific?
Try The Diplomat's jobs board.
Find your Asia-Pacific job