Asian Energy Expansion Means We're Probably Too Late to Avert Climate Change Disruption

Tropical countries worldwide will be experiencing massively disruptive climate change within a generation as a definitive shift in climate takes hold. It won't be long after that definitive climate change takes hold in temperate zone countries, according to a new research report from the lab of University of Hawaii Department of Geography professor, Camilo Mora.

Current high temperatures in Kingston, Jamaica will likely be the new lows come 2028, with new temperature ranges established in Singapore (2028), Mexico City (2031), Cairo (2036), Phoenix and Honolulu (2043) defining new climate regimes thereafter. Globally, new climate regimes that set the terms of existence in societies and ecosystems worldwide are likely to be irrevocably established by 2047, according to Mora Lab's innovative analysis.

For decades, the world's leading climate scientists have been warning of the wide ranging and profound risks, threats and costs to societies and ecosystems worldwide if we continue to pump ever greater quantities of carbon and greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, a conclusion the first installment of the latest UN International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) makes with greater certainty than ever.

Curtailing human carbon and greenhouse gas emissions is the key to avoiding such sharp, drastic and sudden climate change. As illustrated by a new analysis and forecast of energy demand and use in Southeast Asia, the odds of this happening look to range between slim and none, however.

Curtailing fossil fuel emissions

The world's leading climate scientists – with increasing urgency – have been warning and calling on political and business leaders worldwide to curtail fossil fuel emissions over the course of three-plus decades. Despite best efforts to date, human carbon and greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise, a trend that's forecast to continue in coming decades.

Opposition and hurdles to enacting such drastic change to energy use are abundant. Besides being rabidly opposed by some of the largest, most profitable businesses in economic history – the multinational oil and gas majors, their legions of supporters, and their state-owned counterparts, a rapid transition that takes us away from the fossil fuel energy resources, infrastructure and markets is fraught with economic, technological, social and environmental uncertainties, challenges and trade-offs.

Prominent among these have been differences between developed and developing countries as to who bears the greatest obligation to enact such change and who should bear the brunt of the costs. Though responsible for most of the carbon and greenhouse gases humans have been adding to the atmosphere since the dawn of the fossil fuel era, carbon and greenhouse gas emissions have been growing fastest in developing countries, a trend that's expected to accelerate over the course of coming decades.

Southeast Asia energy trends

In a report on energy demand in Southeast Asia, the International Energy Agency (IEA) recently highlights the improbability of curtailing fossil fuel emissions given current usage and projected trends.

Southeast Asia, along with China and India, are home to some of the world's fast growing economies and fastest growing populations, a point IEA executive director Maria van der Hoeven pointed out at the launch of the Southeast Asia Energy Outlook:

“Southeast Asia is, along with China and India, shifting the center of gravity of the global energy system to Asia.”

Per capita energy consumption in Southeast Asia – home to some 134 million people – is low at present as over one-fifth lack access to electricity. That's going to change in the next two decades, however, the IEA forecasts.

With the region's economy expected to triple and population to increase by 25 percent, energy demand in Southeast Asia will increase more than 80 percent to 2035, “a rise equivalent to current demand in Japan,” the report highlights.

Increasing reliance on oil imports will impose high costs and heighten the vulnerability of Southeast Asian economies and societies to supply disruptions, volatility in oil and natural gas prices and environmental degradation. Regional dependency and oil imports will double by 2035, increasing to more than 5 million barrels per day (bpd), while spending is forecast to rise to $240 billion – equivalent of 4 percent of regional GDP. That will make Southeast Asia the fourth-largest oil importer after China, India and the European Union (EU).

At the same time, electricity generation is forecast to increase by more than the current power output of India, with coal-fired power generation projected to account for 58 percent. In turn, the region's surplus of coal and natural gas for export will decrease as greater amounts are used to meet local energy demands. Net gas exports will drop drastically, by more than 75 percent by 2035, according to the IEA. Regional net coal exports will begin to drop post-2020.

Indonesia is the world's leading supplier of thermal coal used for power generation, and coal production there will increase nearly 90 percent over that period.

At 34 percent, the average efficiency of coal-fired power plants in Southeast Asia is very low, “owing to the almost exclusive use of subcritical technologies,” the IEA notes, a point highlighted by Ms. van der Hoeven in her presentation,

“The rising share of coal in power generation underscores the urgent need to deploy more efficient coal-fired power plants.”

Portents not all ill

Clearly, trends in Southeast Asia energy use bodes ill for reducing carbon and greenhouse gas emissions, which would assure that the region adds significantly to bringing about global climate change, as well as deal with its profoundly disruptive and costly effects.

The IEA's forecast is not entirely negative, however. The IEA projects that renewable energy installations will increase by more than the current power output of Indonesia and Thailand combined to 2035, exceeding 20 percent of regional electricity generation.

Eliminating fossil fuel subsidies is critical to the success of reducing regional carbon and greenhouse gas emissions. In addition, doing so would avoid the degradation and costs of water and land pollution associated with fossil fuels extraction, production and use over a period when demand for water and food are also more than likely to surge higher.

Fossil fuel subsidies in Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) continue to distort energy prices across the region, the IEA highlights in its report. Regionally, fossil fuel subsidies totaled $51 billion in 2012 despite energy reform efforts.

Similarly, improving energy efficiency across the region would bring multiple, cross-cutting gains and benefits. Energy efficiency gains of 15 percent – the current energy use of Thailand – could be realized regionally by 2035 if appropriate measures were taken, according to the IEA.