European Union climate change plan work in Southeast Asia
The EU has allocated millions of euros to support climate-friendly development in Southeast Asia. But the EU’s climate diplomacy in the region faces economic growth fueled by dirty energy.
After the European Union became a “strategic partner” of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) bloc in December 2020, both blocs pledged to make climate change policy a key area of cooperation.
The EU, already the largest provider of development aid to the ASEAN region, has committed millions of euros to various environmental programs.
This includes € 5 million ($ 5.86 million) for the ASEAN Smart Green Cities initiative and another € 5 million for a new means of preventing deforestation, called Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade in ASEAN.
Along with multilateral assistance, the EU is also working with individual ASEAN member states on green policies such as Thailand’s Bio-Circular-Green Economic Model and Singapore’s Green Plan 2030.
For years, the EU has been working on climate action in Southeast Asia by organizing dialogues and technical assistance projects. Igor Driesmans, the EU’s ASEAN ambassador, recently said the two blocs would soon begin a “dedicated dialogue” on the transition to clean energy.
However, Brussels faces an uphill struggle to change the region’s environmental policy.
“The EU has been somewhat proactive in its engagement with Southeast Asia to address climate change, but overall Southeast Asia is going in the wrong direction in many areas on climate change,” Joshua Kurlantzick, principal investigator for Southeast Asia at the Council on Foreign Relations told DW.
Five ASEAN states are among the fifteen countries most affected by climate change between 1999 and 2018, according to the 2020 Climate Risk Index.
The Coal-Driven Economies of Southeast Asia
As a rapidly developing region, where economic growth, urbanization, and domestic consumption rates are expected to increase in the coming decades, Southeast Asia’s energy demand is projected to grow 60% by 2040.
This will contribute to a two-thirds increase in CO2 emissions to almost 2.4 gigatons, according to the Southeast Asia Energy Outlook 2019.
Of the many environmental problems facing the region, perhaps the most important is the continued consumption of coal for electricity generation, said Nithi Nesadurai, regional coordinator of the Southeast Asia Climate Action Network.
“This is contributing to increased emissions and does not bode well for the region, even as the share of renewable energy in the energy mix increases to marginal levels,” he told DW.
Southeast Asia is one of the few areas in the world where the use of coal has increased in the last decade. In 2019, the region consumed around 332 million tonnes of coal, almost double the consumption of a decade earlier, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA).
Of that, Indonesia accounted for 42% and Vietnam for almost a third. In 2019, the region’s thermal coal imports increased 19% compared to the previous year, according to an IEA report.
Energy generated from coal doubled in the Philippines between 2011 and 2018, when it accounted for 53% of energy consumption, according to the country’s Department of Energy.
Coal is expected to account for more than 50% of Vietnam’s energy supply by 2030, predicts the World Coal Association, an industry body.
Even Laos, which has built hundreds of hydroelectric dams over the past decade, saw coal-fired power production rise from next to nothing to 10,000 GWh in 2017.
In February, Laos Deputy Minister of Energy and Mines, Daovong Phoneke, announced that two new coal-fired power plants, with investments worth up to $ 4 billion, will be opened by the end of the year, mainly to export energy to countries. neighbors.
According to a study published in November in the journal Energy and Climate Change, coal power will overtake natural gas as the main source of energy in the ASEAN region by 2030. And by 2040 it could represent almost 50% of the energy projected for the region. CO2 emissions.
Is the EU ignoring coal in Southeast Asia?
However, the EU rarely, if ever, mentions coal power production in its climate policy in Southeast Asia.
After the second EU-ASEAN High-Level Dialogue on Environment and Climate Change in November, a post-dialogue statement from the two blocs made no reference to coal power. Coal is also not mentioned in detail in the 2020 Blue Book, a 47-page guide outlining the EU-ASEAN partnership.
“The combination of a strong research base, policy advice, collaborative feasibility, and access to funding should help them cope with the transition,” said Driesmans, the EU ambassador, referring to the ASEAN bloc’s climate change activity.
“As part of the upcoming clean energy dialogue between the EU and ASEAN, we look forward to supporting ASEAN in its energy transition, including all relevant aspects: renewable energy, energy efficiency, grid integration, climate finance and carbon phase-out. . ”, He added.
The EU tends to take a more subtle approach. The EU-Vietnam free trade agreement, which came into force last year, commits Vietnam to making efforts for renewable energy production, but limiting its consumption of coal-based energy is not explicitly mentioned.
“The EU should be more proactive in trying to help Southeast Asian states stop using coal plants,” Kurlantzick said. “Of course, this also applies to the Southeast Asian states, and also to China, which essentially exports coal plants,” he added.
Much money in dirty energy
Indeed, if the EU takes a firm and forceful stance on coal consumption in the region, it could provoke the ire of the main exporters of the raw material, China, India and Australia.
Brussels’ policy on climate change in the region has already met resistance.
Indonesia launched proceedings at the World Trade Organization last year against the EU’s gradual ban on palm oil imports. Brussels maintains that the ban is to protect the environment, but Indonesia, the world’s largest palm oil producer, says it is mere protectionism.
Malaysia, the world’s second largest palm oil producer, has vowed to support Jakarta in its battle against the EU.
In the latest survey on the state of Southeast Asia, released in February by the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore, around 43% of respondents said they trust the EU because of its stance on the environment, human rights and climate change.
However, 15.1% said they distrusted the EU for this reason, believing that its environmental policy could threaten the interests and sovereignty of their country.
The other problem for the EU is that it risks charges of hypocrisy if it takes an overly aggressive stance on coal-fired power production in Southeast Asia.
“You must show leadership by example. You cannot pressure Southeast Asian countries to move away from coal when they are struggling to do the same in some EU countries, ”said Nesadurai of the Southeast Asian Climate Action Network.
Coal production and consumption have fallen dramatically in the EU in recent decades. Hard coal consumption fell from 300 million tonnes in 1999 to 176 million tonnes in 2019, about half the rate of Southeast Asian coal consumption that year, according to EU data.
But Poland and the Czech Republic remain dependent on coal-based energy production, although the former contributed to almost 95% of the EU’s total coal production in 2019. And, according to the International Energy Agency, Southeast Asia and Europe each accounted for around 11% of global thermal coal imports in 2019.
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