Southeast Asia Can’t Afford Climate Backsliding
Compounding crises should be accelerating the energy transition in this vulnerable region. The opposite is playing out.
Too much of a bad thing.
Photographer: Dimas Ardian/BloombergIn theory, a European war that has driven up the price of oil, gas and coal — thereby exposing the fiscal and security risk of depending too heavily on grimy imports — should be setting off warning lights in climate-vulnerable Southeast Asia. Reality has proven far more complicated.
Exposure to the upheaval in global commodities markets since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine varies across this region of nearly 700 million people, but the basic dilemma is similar. Governments are juggling short-term price oscillations and the strain on households, while also attempting to reduce reliance on polluting fuels in general, and on coal in particular. Consider resource-rich Indonesia, with green manufacturing ambitions, but where coal is also the largest component of the energy mix, a significant export and, directly and indirectly, a hefty employer.