South-east Asia needs to boost investments by 2035 to meet climate goals, IEA says

SINGAPORE - South-east Asia needs to increase clean energy investments to US$190 billion (S$250 billion) – about five times the current level – by 2035 to achieve its climate goals, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said on Oct 22.

Ramping up energy investments needs to be accompanied by strategies to reduce emissions from the region’s relatively young fleet of coal-fired plants, it said in a report.

The IEA added that rapid economic expansions were expected to pose challenges to energy security and climate goals.

However, a push to close coal power plants in emerging markets, backed by rich Western nations, is facing delays after a July deadline passed without a deal on the early closure of an Indonesian pilot project.

Electricity demand in South-east Asia is set to grow at an annual rate of 4 per cent in the coming years, with clean energy sources such as wind and solar, alongside modern bioenergy and geothermal power, projected to meet more than a third of the growth in energy demand in the region by 2035, the report said.

Still, this would not be enough to rein in the region’s energy-related carbon dioxide emissions, which are set to increase by 35 per cent between now and mid-century, it said.

IEA executive director Fatih Birol said: “Clean energy technologies are not expanding quickly enough and the continued heavy reliance on fossil fuel imports is leaving countries highly exposed to future risks.”

The region as a whole attracts only 2 per cent of global clean energy investment despite accounting for 6 per cent of global GDP, 5 per cent of global energy demand and being home to 9 per cent of the world’s population, according to the report.

Expanding and modernising the region’s power grids to support greater shares of variable renewable energy will require annual investment to double to nearly US$30 billion by 2035, said the IEA. REUTERS