Page 2 of 2 Southeast Asia's
climate-change
challenge By Andrew Symon
the
gas. And natural gas continues to face obstacles
due to delays in constructing pipelines.
Moreover, gas will no time soon replace
cheap but greenhouse-gas-emitting coal in the
region. Coal-fired generation is planned to grow
fast in Indonesia, Malaysia and Vietnam. More
hydropower is likely to be used, especially in the
Mekong region, but again there are environmental
concerns as to the impact of damming
rivers on downstream river
life and communities vulnerable to drought.
Vietnam in particular is finding this a
major problem, with exceptionally dry seasons in
the past two or three years leading to low water
levels in reservoirs behind hydro dams in the
north. There has been competition between supply
for farmers downriver for rice irrigation and for
power generation. This in turn has made Vietnam's
power planners look to coal-fired generation as
well as natural gas as means of reducing reliance
on hydropower.
Nuclear power has also
emerged in the past 18 months or so as a serious
possibility in several countries. Vietnam and
Indonesia propose large-capacity generation
plants, possibly coming into operation at the end
of the next decade. And most recently, the
governments of Thailand and Myanmar have put
forward the idea. Again, there are many issues
here, ranging from whether the plants would really
be economic to safety and weapons-proliferation
concerns.
Motor vehicles - another major
source of carbon-dioxide emissions - are set to
keep filling Southeast Asia's roads. In per capita
terms, car ownership is still low. But at the same
time, in large urban areas, growing car ownership
continues to congest cities and harm the
atmosphere and community health through vehicle
exhaust. Better public-transport systems - from
buses to rail overhead and underground systems -
are clearly critical but are generally only
planned for the region's more affluent countries.
Emission analysis Not all the
news is bad, however. For instance, Singapore has
for decades been exemplary in its attention to
urban planning and mass transport, including
extensive use of greenbelts and tree-lined
gardens. Bangkok, notorious in the past for
traffic jams and exhaust pollution, is also now
benefiting from its light rail and more recent
underground rail system, as well as stricter
standards and controls on gasoline quality. In
Vietnam, the fastest-growing economy in the
region, there are plans for mass-transit systems
for the large and fast-growing cities of Hanoi and
Ho Chi Minh. Whether they can be put in place
ahead of the expected huge growth in vehicle
numbers remains to be seen, however.
Southeast Asia, which justifiably prides
itself on the great progress the region has made
in terms of both political stability and economic
development since the late 1970s, still faces many
pressing socioeconomic challenges. As such,
concerns over greenhouse-gas emission and climate
change do not yet seem as pressing as they are now
in the developed world.
Southeast Asia's
defenders will point - and rightly so - to the
region's low per capita emissions of carbon
dioxide. And over the medium term, these will
still be low compared with the developed world. By
2030, APERC projects 4.2 tons per capita in
Southeast Asia, compared with 6.7 in China, 10.8
in Japan, 21.9 in Australia and 23.0 in the United
States. These low per capita figures are
consistent with still low per capita income levels
compared with more developed countries, apart from
China.
The popular argument is - and will
continue to be - that Southeast Asia's economic
development should not be penalized through a
disproportionate burden of greenhouse-gas
reduction measures. Further strengthening this
perspective is the fact that much of the
atmosphere's existing carbon-dioxide content has
been produced by the West and Japan over the past
century. This also points to another problem with
carbon-dioxide mitigation: it can take a century
or more for carbon dioxide to break down
naturally.
However, the comparison of per
capita output on a national basis is arguably not
sufficiently focused. Looking at national averages
does not give a sharp enough picture of energy-use
patterns and how they might be improved. When
comparing major urban areas, say Bangkok or
Jakarta, with comparable cities in the developed
world, the per capita emission figures in many
cases are not that different. Singapore is a case
and point. Its per capita carbon-dioxide output
was a high 12.2 tons in 2002 and is projected by
APERC to reach 18.8 tons by 2030.
Future
analysis would be better based on scientific and
economic geography rather than nation-states -
although national governments clearly remain
critical and indispensable as far as policy
development and implementation are concerned. This
in turn points to Southeast Asia's particular
greenhouse-gas challenges.
Energy use by
the region's cities is often extravagant and
wasteful, which could be improved through better
building design, electrical-product standards, and
transport systems. Set against this are rural
areas where millions of people live in virtual
energy poverty with little or no access to
electricity. Hence Southeast Asia faces the unique
global-warming challenge of both the modern
urbanized and industrialized world and the
agriculture-based developing world. And it is
increasingly important that it is addressed as
such.
Andrew Symon is a
Singapore-based journalist and analyst
specializing in energy and natural resources. He
is currently completing a book on energy in
Southeast Asia.
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