The ten member economies of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations’ (ASEAN) continued reliance on fossil fuels is proving to be a “significant vulnerability in today’s energy crisis”, according to the International Energy Agency’s (IEA) Southeast Asia Energy Outlook 2022. ASEAN members include Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines. IEA’s outlook said that these are some of the world’s fastest growing economies, noting that their accelerated transition to low-carbon operations and products would provide greater business and investment opportunities. The IEA has called on ASEAN countries to make “major efforts” to improve their energy efficiency, implement renewable power generation and switch to low emission fuels. “Southeast Asia is an emerging heavyweight of global energy, and the speed of its economic development makes it even more essential that the region’s governments hasten efforts to transition to sustainable energy and that they get the international support they need to do so,” said Fatih Birol, IEA’s Executive Director.
