ASEAN energy leaders attending the Sustainability and Renewable Energy Forum (Saref) 3.0, in Kuching last week, were in agreement that Asean countries will not be able to meet the climate goal of net-zero emissions by 2050 at the current pace of efforts.

“Definitely not,” said Hamzah Hussin, CEO of Sustainable Energy Development Authority (Seda) Malaysia while Mohd Yusoff Sulaiman, president and CEO of Malaysian Industry-Government Group for High Technology (Might) said “we are slow”.

Sharbini Suhaili, the group CEO of Sarawak Energy (SEB) and host of the sustainability and renewable energy forum, said what Asean is doing today is not only not quick enough, “it is also not big enough”.

“The speed and the scale is not in line with the Paris Agreement target,” he said in the energy leader’s segment of the two-day energy forum.

The Paris Agreement is the global plan to keep world temperature increases well below 2C – if possible 1.5C – compared to pre-industrial levels.

It was adopted by 196 parties, including Malaysia, at the 21st Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP21) and came into force on November 4, 2016.

Sharbini said Malaysia will reach peak carbon dioxide emissions by 2025, and needs to lower the carbon intensity of its GDP by 43% by 2030.

He said as it stands, Malaysia has only seven years to reach its climate goals.

“From what I understand from the UN and efforts underway today, we will only achieve 2.8C,” he said.

The pace Asean is taking needs a relook, he added.

“The world is facing a critical decade in terms of climate action.

“We need to do more and need to do it quickly.”

One action the energy leader agreed on was to quicken the pace for members to collaborate with one another, with the haves helping the have nots.

That, energy leaders agreed, is key to ramp up the pace of efforts.

“Collaboration and cooperation among member states. We need to make sure these member states have the resources, capitalise on those resources and develop these for their own countries first.”

He said later they could share these resources with other nations in the region to transition to a low carbon future.

“Hopefully the rest of the world will do the same.”

Wong Kim Yin, group president and CEO of Singapore’s Sembcorp Industries, said if Asean could overcome its geographical challenges and move faster towards having an Asean power grid, “I think that would boost our efforts to achieve net zero.”

Wong pointed out that since each member state is in varying stages of development, sharing of resources, capital and expertise is important.

Sharbini said the core issue for the Asean pace is leadership.

He is of the opinion that leaders of large energy corporations, rather than governments, need to take up the responsibility to meet climate goals.

He gave SEB’s drive for the Borneo grid as an example.

“We want to drive the Borneo grid to share renewable resources as we want to prosper our neighbours as well.

“If we wait for politicians to do it, it might never happen. So it’s incumbent on organisations like SEB, Sembcorp, PLN (Indonesia’s Perusahaan Listrik Negara) to develop a relationship and look into how we can interconnect.

“Of course we need the support of the government but we have to first push for it. We need to provide that leadership.” –  September 10, 2023.