ASEAN nations return to fossil fuels, back away from net zero plans

For years, the governments in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations faced pressure from international lenders and climate forums to announce fossil fuel phase-outs, moratoria on new plants, and heavy bets on wind and solar.

Indonesia and Vietnam secured decarbonization-inspired funding from the Just Energy Transition Partnership. Leaders spoke of achieving net-zero goals by 2050 and exiting coal by 2040 or earlier. Natural gas was regarded as the transition fuel, a supposedly necessary evil to get to a future renewable energy utopia, in which wind and solar would be “scaled up.”

Then the confident rhetoric met reality.

A sudden oil and natural gas crunch, triggered by the expanding conflict in the Middle East, has laid bare fatal flaws in the net zero program. Gas markets tightened almost overnight. Shipping routes through the Strait of Hormuz got risky. Liquefied natural gas prices surged. Supply chains stumbled. 

Now, ASEAN governments are quietly tearing up their climate pledges and returning to oil, coal, and natural gas — the only affordable energy sources that guarantee uninterrupted power for their growing economies.

In short, fossil fuels are back in style.

Since mid-April, reports have described a clear pattern across Asia: liquefied natural gas disruption, higher spot prices, and a scramble for dispatchable power that coal can still provide more cheaply and immediately than many alternatives. ASEAN does not run on slogans, and factories, ports,........

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