Southeast Asia Continues Hurtling Down the Net Zero Suicide Track

Net Zero may be on life support in the US and Europe, but Southeast Asia doesn't appear to have got the note

Net Zero may be on life support in the US and Europe, but Southeast Asia doesn’t appear to have got the note. Not, at least, if a new paper by leading scholars at the National University of Singapore published in a journal affiliated with the US National Academy of Sciences is any indication. Technically sophisticated as ever, but based on economic modelling untethered from reality, it assumes what it should test, minimises costs without measuring them and ignores a host of political, institutional and technological obstacles.

The recently published paper ‘Charting net-zero pathways for ASEAN’s energy sector’ in PNAS Nexus by research scholars at the Energy Studies Institute at the National University of Singapore and ExxonMobil sets out to explore “pathways to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050” in Southeast Asia. Using a linear-programming model integrating electricity generation, regional power grids, carbon storage and hydrogen, the authors identify two stylised pathways: one dominated by wind, solar and battery storage, and another relying heavily on carbon capture and storage (CCS) alongside the use of so-called ‘green’ hydrogen. The paper concludes that regional grid connectivity can reduce storage and reserve needs, offering “clear insights” for policymakers as the Association of Southeast Asian Nations marches toward Net Zero.

The publication of such a paper, bearing the imprimatur of a journal affiliated with the US National Academy of Sciences, would have been unremarkable five years ago. Today, it borders on the surreal. Europe — the self-styled global leader of climate virtue — is quietly retreating from its more extreme green policies as de-industrialisation, energy insecurity and collapsing competitiveness concentrate political minds. The United States, under President Trump, has gone further still, withdrawing funding and political support from climate agreements and dismantling what officials openly call a global climate hoax. Last year’s UN COP30 climate conference in Brazil ended in disarray without even the usual aspirational closing statement to end use of fossil fuels and hasten the so-called energy transition.

And yet, against this backdrop of Western retreat and reassessment, ASEAN is urged — by its own scholars — to double down on Net Zero by 2050, as though the past decade of policy failures in countries and states leading the climate crusade – Germany, UK and California -- had taught us nothing.