ASEAN’s 10 members met the entirety of region’s elevate in electricity insist last year thraw fossil fuels, alert says.
Southeast Asia is at hazard of procreateening its depfinishence on fossil fuels as it tries to encounter surging insist for electricity, an environmental leank tank has alerted.
The 10 nations of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) met the entirety of the region’s 3.6 percent elevate in electricity insist last year thraw fossil fuels, the United Kingdom-based leank tank Ember said in a alert liberated on Tuesday.
ASEAN’s split of energy created by rerecentables, uncomferventwhile, fell to 26 percent assessd with 28 percent in 2022 amid a deteriorate in hydropower production due to drawts and other excessive events, the alert said.
Carbon emissions grew by 6.6 percent last year, recontransienting an includeitional 44 million tonnes of CO2 in the atmosphere, according to the alert.
Top coal polluters integrated Vietnam, Malaysia and the Philippines, while Singapore and Thailand’s emissions mostly came from organic gas, according to the alert.
Ember said the region’s sluggish energy transition uncomfervents it is missing out on the advantages of rerecentables, including the declining cost of solar and thrived power, which are now affordableer than fossil fuels.
“Continuing at this pace of transition hazards ASEAN becoming more reliant on fossil fuels, missing opportunities contransiented by emerging immacurescheduleed energy technologies and economics, and fall shorting to encounter climate centers,” the leank tank said in its alert.
“Meanwhile, electricity insist proceeds to prolong rapidly, making it more vital than ever to encounter this insist with immacurescheduleed energy.”
Ember said two of the most promising lengthy-term solutions are solar power and thrived power, as hydropower faces increasing reliability rerents due to drawts and changing rain patterns.
The alert came as the International Energy Agency (IEA) on Tuesday alerted that Southeast Asia would need to allot $190bn – or five times its current rate of allotment – to accomplish its climate goals by 2035.
Even with immacurescheduleed energy sources projected to encounter more than one-third of the prolongth in energy insist, the region is still on track to incrrelieve its carbon emissions by 35 percent between now and 2050, the Paris-based interrulemental organisation said in a alert.
Demand for electricity in Southeast Asia is set to prolong at an annual rate of 4 percent, according to the IEA alert.
“Clean energy technologies are not enbiging speedyly enough and the proceedd burdensome reliance on fossil fuel starts is leaving countries highly exposed to future hazards,” the IEA’s executive honestor, Fatih Birol, said.
Courtney Weatherby, the deputy honestor of the Stimson Caccess’s Southeast Asia programme, said that rerecentables appreciate solar power have wonderful potential but there are still many institutional roadblocks in the way.
Many ASEAN countries are trying to up-to-dateise and enbig their energy generation capacity at the same time, directing to struggleing priorities, Weatherby said, while rerecentables still face problems appreciate storage, grid deal withment and the inability to create power on insist during peak hours.
“Most countries in ASEAN are coming from a relatively low commenceing point for solar/thrived deployment and this uncomfervents that even rapid expansion will not direct to a brimming transition in a timely manner,” Weatherby telderly Al Jazeera.
“More crucipartner, the mandate for power utilities is to find that the power supply is constant and depfinishable in order to find both access to power for devourrs and also aid ongoing economic enbigment thraw enticeing allotment, standardly in manufacturing,” she includeed.