EU-ABC urges ASEAN to expedite energy transition

This will help the region deal with climate change challenges .

The EU-ASEAN Business Council (EU-ABC) today published a calling on ASEAN governments to accelerate energy transition as a means of helping the region deal with climate change challenges and ensure the greening of supply chains whilst meeting its rising energy demands.     

The council, which represents the interests of the European business community across Southeast Asia, noted there is a clear need for ASEAN to address its over-reliance on fossil fuels, particularly coal, for its energy needs, given the vulnerability of the region to natural catastrophes and a recent IPCC report highlighting the alarming rise in global temperatures. 

“The EU-ABC believes that progress requires a mix of policies, finance and technology, with special assistance for developing countries. That means coming up with new practical, scalable solutions (such as derisking instruments) that can accelerate the energy transition, phasing out fossil fuel subsidies, and providing a just transition for affected workers and communities,” said EU-ABC and  Prudential Insurance Growth Markets Chairman Donald Kanak.

"One such solution that could potentially support ASEAN is an Energy Transition Mechanism (ETM) – a way to combine public and private finance to accelerate retirement of coal-fired power plants and significantly increase investment in renewables. The EU-ABC, with its members and other key stakeholders, are supportive of the work being led by the Asian Development Bank to explore the feasibility of the ETM in several countries in ASEAN,” Kanak added.

EU-ABC Executive Director Chris Humphrey said tackling climate change should be a priority for everyone.

"As ASEAN continues to develop economically demand for power will increase, but we need to make sure that that increased demand is being met from less polluting sources, and that producers and manufacturers can continue to grow but do so using greener sources for their power needs. This will require shifts in policy thinking to adopt policies and processes that promote the transition away from high carbon emitting solutions to lower carbon ones, and ultimately renewable energy solutions,” Humphrey said.

Amongst the things EU-ABC called for include the development of an ASEAN-wide green finance taxonomy and enhanced derisking instruments to aid the development of sustainable finance mechanisms in the region which could be used to help finance energy transition solutions.