Why South-east Asia must choose a renewable energy future

AS leaders of Asean gather to discuss energy policy and climate action in the coming months, one thing must remain at the forefront of deliberations. This historic moment for change will slip through our fingers unless all countries collectively and wholeheartedly lean in to the energy transition.

Like the rest of the world, South-east Asia's long-term interests are served only by decisions that address energy-related carbon emissions and promote the transition. Indeed, without a strong regional commitment to a renewables-based future, global efforts to create a more resilient, prosperous and climate-safe future are considerably weakened.

There are signs that the region is ready to play a major role. Asean aims to increase the share of renewable energy in installed power capacity to 35 per cent by 2025, with an aspirational goal of 23 per cent of total energy in the same year. The region is making noteworthy progress towards these objectives. About 82 per cent of new power capacity added last year was renewable, and Vietnam's favourable market conditions and public demand for cleaner air pushed a remarkable 12 GW of new renewables capacity online.

Progress on regional interconnections is another source of optimism. The Asean Power Grid (APG) interconnection project is making significant headway allowing Laos, Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore to tap each other's clean power. Laos has already exported 300 MW of renewable electricity to Malaysia through Thailand, and soon Singapore will be able to meet growing energy demand with imported renewable power from its neighbours.

Yet there are challenges. Two of the region's economies are among five countries that account for 75 per cent of existing global coal capacity and are responsible for 80 per cent of the world's planned coal plants. Without question, South-east Asia's 50 GW of planned new coal is both a threat to carbon budgets and a significant danger to investor returns that, if developed, will leave the region and its people appreciably worse off.

The global energy community has coalesced around a view of a 2050 energy system dominated by renewable electricity, with significant contributions made by modern bioenergy and green hydrogen. Implicit within that is an acknowledgement that any future investment in oil and coal will risk everything - for everyone.

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This threat is increasingly recognised by both governments and markets. A total of 41 countries are signatories of the Powering Past Coal Alliance, setting out an agreement to phase out coal entirely by 2030 in the European Union, and by 2050 in the rest of the world. At the United Nations General Assembly in September, China announced that it would stop overseas coal funding, and major financial institutions including the Asian Development Bank and Prudential have announced plans to retire coal facilities in the region.

Through our close engagement in the Singapore International Energy Week (Oct 25 to Oct 29), IRENA and the Singapore government will co-host a high-level political dialogue that seeks to build on this momentum and mobilise the capital needed to achieve a just and inclusive transition in South-east Asia.

LONG-TERM BENEFITS

Central to decision-making in the coming months must be the fact that the transition brings significant, long-term benefits. By 2050, under IRENA's net-zero scenario, the energy sector will employ 122 million people - more than double today's total energy jobs, with the renewable energy sector employing some 40 million people - 6 million of them in South-east Asia alone.

The transition will also lower electricity costs. Renewables brought online in emerging countries last year will reduce electricity costs by at least US$6 billion a year relative to adding the same amount of fossil fuel generation, notably coal. With the cost curves of renewables and coal set to converge in South-east Asia, policy and investment decisions should avoid the temptation for short-termism.

Every dollar of energy investment made today that is misaligned with a net-zero future further condemns the most vulnerable to a future of profound environmental and socio-economic catastrophe. This is a threat South-east Asia is acutely aware of. Nineteen of the 25 most exposed cities to a one-metre sea level rise are in Asia, seven of them in the Philippines.

It is not only the future of Asean economies and communities that are at stake here. Extreme weather patterns may displace coastal communities across Asia, but they will also disrupt farmers in Africa, render parts of the Middle East unliveable, and consign low-lying small islands to history.

No person, anywhere on earth, benefits from a warming planet and the worst of the suffering will disproportionally affect those least equipped to manage the shocks.

There are important choices to be made about the future we want. Doing nothing is a choice in itself. The energy transition presents the world with a viable, cost-effective, economically attractive gateway to a more inclusive, and prosperous future. With COP26 as a catalyst, it is crucial that South-east Asia applies a new lens to its long-term energy view and chooses to accelerate the transition.

• The writer is director-general of IRENA for Singapore International Energy Week

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