Stephen Minas

Opinion | Australia summit shows Asean wants climate partners. Hong Kong, step up

Melbourne meeting reaffirmed Asean’s carbon neutrality strategy and unveiled partnerships with Australia. Asean’s climate investment gap is a chance for Hong Kong and the Greater Bay Area

Reading Time:3 minutes

Why you can trust SCMP

A farmer looks at his crop in a dry rice field in southern Vietnam’s Ca Mau province, amid a long heatwave, on February 23. The Asean region is highly vulnerable to climate change. Photo: AFP

Stephen Minas

Published: 9:30am, 15 Mar 2024

Newsflash: the Asean-Australia Special Summit which wrapped up in Melbourne recently was not all about China.

News from the summit, held to mark 50 years of relations between the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and Australia, has been predictably dominated by takes on China’s role in the region from leaders past and present. But the summit also confirmed Asean’s commitment to a carbon-neutral economy – and its need for partners to help achieve its climate goals. This is an opportunity for Hong Kong.

Asean is on the front line of climate change. In the Global Climate Risk Index 2021 produced by NGO Germanwatch, Myanmar, the Philippines and Thailand are among the top 10 countries most affected by longer-term climate change. The region’s combination of high poverty levels, dependence on climate-hit sectors such as agriculture, extreme weather and coastline-hugging population makes it highly vulnerable.

Asean is also a rising source of greenhouse gas emissions, with a growing population, an energy mix dominated by fossil fuels, new coal plants planned or under way, and deforestation. With a collective gross domestic product that doubled from 2009 to 2019, the need to decouple economic growth from emissions growth in Asean is clear.

To respond to these challenges, Asean members last year adopted its carbon neutrality strategy, setting out initiatives that cover areas from physical infrastructure to financial markets. At the Melbourne summit, Asean members reaffirmed this strategy.

Asean and Australian leaders pose for photos at Government House in Melbourne during the Asean-Australia special summit on March 6. Photo: dpa

In the Melbourne Declaration, Asean and Australia commit to cooperation in “accelerating efforts towards the phase down of unabated coal power, and transitioning away from fossil fuels in energy systems, in a just, orderly and equitable manner”. This language is taken from the final decision of the Dubai Cop28 UN climate conference. Its inclusion shows the hard-won Dubai consensus has traction as a basis for regional planning and cooperation on moving beyond fossil fuels.