Abstract
Southeast Asia is one of the most vulnerable to climate change due to the region’s unique geographic, economic and sociodemographic circumstances. In order to minimize the adverse impacts of climate change, ASEAN member states (AMS) have set various targets and policies to tackle climate change and decarbonize their economy. However, most AMS are developing countries struggling with budget and financial constraints, so they have called for external financial support to meet their climate targets and realize energy transition. This study examines historical trends of international development finance that AMS received for their energy sector during the last 20 years (2003–2022), as a traditional major funding source. Then, it discusses whether the trends are aligned with global and AMS’s energy transition ambition and whether international development finance is sufficient to support AMS’s net zero pathways. The review confirms that bilateral and multilateral development finance for renewable energy generation projects in AMS has been growing, although there are some fluctuations by year. By contrast, development finance for fossil fuel generation was much larger than that for renewable generation until 2016 but became smaller in 2017 with a decreasing trend. Despite such growth, international development finance will be insufficient to achieve AMS’s net-zero targets. Thus, it needs to explore how to scale up the finance for the decarbonization and energy transition in this region with additional proper financing models.
Presenters
Jeong Won KimSenior Research Fellow, Energy Studies Institute, National University of Singapore, Singapore
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
Technical, Political, and Social Responses
KEYWORDS
Climate Finance, Development Finance, Energy Transition, Net Zero, ASEAN
