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Nordic Asia Podcast

This is the Nordic Asia podcast.

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Quynh Le Vo

Welcome to the Nordic Asia podcast, a collaboration sharing expertise on Asiaacross the Nordic region. I'm Quynh Le Vo, a master student in EnvironmentalChange and Global Sustainability at the University of Helsinki, focusing on climateadaptation in Southeast Asia. My guest today is Sharon Seah, senior fellow andcoordinator at the Asian Studies Centre and the Climate Change in Southeast Asiaprogram at the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute with a master's degree in public andinternational law. Her research interests are in the ASEAN rule of law, multilateralism,climate change and environment. If you are like me and listen to the BBC WorldService while having your breakfast porridge, you might have heard Sharon'sinterview a couple of weeks back during the BBC Radio's coverage of COP26, whichwe will talk about later. Thanks, Sharon, for joining us at the Nordic Asia podcast.

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Sharon Seah

Thank you for having me today on your show.

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Quynh Le Vo

So firstly, about the ISEAS Yusof Ishak Institute, as many of our listeners might bealready familiar with the institute. It was established in 1968 and has since thenbecome a leading research centre on socio-political, security and economic trendsand developments in Southeast Asia based in Singapore. However, I think theClimate Change in Southeast Asia program, which you coordinate, is a relativelyrecent addition to the institute's activities. So could you tell us a bit more about whatmotivated the decision to establish the program and the research areas that youfocus on?

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Sharon Seah

Thanks for asking that question. So the program I started in August 2020, and it wasby then that was felt that climate change was fast becoming a strategic issue that theinstitute should be paying attention to. And by strategic, I mean that there is aphenomenon. Its impact and the policy responses that are coming from across thecountries in the region will be important and significant in years to come. And it wasalso increasingly clear that some of these changes that are coming our way need tobe planned for and we need to pass a greater eye on these issues. So the researchareas that we look at, namely five, we look at the regional climate outlook of theSoutheast Asian countries in the region. We do a study on the NDCs nationallydetermined contributions and what they mean and whether their national policies andplans are in place to achieve the targets this set up for themselves. The second areawe look at will be in agriculture, forestry and food security. As you know, parts ofSoutheast Asia are the rice bowls for the region, so it's important for us to anticipatesome of those changes coming our way. The third area is in cities. Many SoutheastAsians are living or planning to move to megacities in Southeast Asia, and many ofthe cities are under threat of sea level rise, flooding and inundation. So these aresome of the challenges we look at. The third area is an energy and decarbonisation,so we look at the long term plans. The countries have to reach net zero target and thelast one is finance. So it's quite a catch all phrase. As I always tell people, we look atissues ranging from ESG to carbon pricing to trading and so on.

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00:03:29

Quynh Le Vo

So it really is a very comprehensive program, and it sounds like you cover bothclimate change mitigation and climate adaptation and everything kind of in betweenand around it as well in your activities. I think I saw that at the end of 2020. Theprogramme published the first ever Southeast Asia Climate Outlook Survey report,which probably falls and the first area of the programme's work. And I found that itprovides a really comprehensive overview of how climate change is perceived bySoutheast Asians all across the region. One of my personal favourite facts that cameout of the report was that of the respondents to the survey, those who were under 21years old, over half of them were actively engaged in climate advocacy and as ayoung person. Although I am not 21 or under, I still find that really, really inspiring.And just like over half of the people under 21 was also significantly more than for anyother age group that you surveyed. So I wonder, as the report's author, what do youthink are the key takeaways from this survey you'd like people to know about?

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00:04:38

Sharon Seah

Yes. So the findings were in a way not surprising, because the greater generation, asI call them, also exists in this part of the world, and they're very concerned aboutwhat climate change is going to mean for them at the end of the century, right? Andso as a result of those findings, in the first survey in our second survey this year, weactually wanted to know where they were getting their new sources from. And it wasvery interesting, of course. Again, maybe something not new that the under 21'sreally depend a lot on social media influences and public figures to get theirinformation about climate change issues. So here is a double edged sword, if youwill, following a good influencer who provides accurate information well and good,but you're also subject to misinformation and disinformation in this day and age. Sothat's something that I think maybe our under-21 audience need to be aware of. Youknow, to discern the news sources. So in terms of takeaways, the very first one thatcomes up consistently is that the region agrees there's a need to cut reliance on coal.And I think you do know that two of the countries in our region actually account forlarge proportion of the coal pipeline, and that's Indonesia and Vietnam.

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00:05:53

Sharon Seah

So the findings are really quite startling that people feel that there is definitely thatneed to cut subsidies and they feel that it is beneficial in the long term, but it will bepainful for them in the short term. But related to that, we also found out from thesurvey that people are not so willing to bear the costs individually. They want to seegovernments and big corporations bearing those costs. And the third finding that wecame away with was that despite COVID, people place equal emphasis on COVIDand climate. And in this year's edition, we asked, Do you see whether governmentstimulus spending was going to us green recovery? And it was a majority " No". Andin fact, people from business, finance and industry who incidentally, are thebeneficiaries from many governments wage subsidies and soft loans to keep themafloat. They also had a resounding no. So it's quite clear that the public perceptionwas that while there were stimulus packages being doled out, these packages hadcertain short lived effects on the people.

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00:06:57

Quynh Le Vo

So it really sounds like there's not that much difference in Southeast Asianperceptions of climate change and the solutions to what they're willing to do and therelationship between climate change and the pandemic, compared to how I seepeople perceiving it, for example, here in Europe, despite the pandemic, climatechange is still a very relevant issue to a lot of people. But people really do feel likeeven though they are willing to make some sacrifices themselves, they still also wantbusiness and governments to take the lead and kind of show them the way of how todo that. On the last point, still to talk about the pandemic a little bit, you mentionedthe fact that government spending on pandemic stimulus measures did notcontribute to a green recovery. So why do you think this is so? Can you pinpoint anytype of reasons?

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00:07:48

Well, we did a little bit of research on the slew of packages that governments cameup with and really what we could see was there were no green strings attached. Sofor instance, in some governments bailing out the national airlines, there were noconditions imposed. And in fact, in some governments, they gave outenvironmentally harmful measures, which to us was really counter intuitive. Becausewhen you want to push for a recovery. Isn't this the best opportunity to push for agreen recovery? So, for instance, governments could have imposed maybesustainable jet fuels as a condition for using their packages, or they could, instead ofgiving out just dollar wage subsidies, perhaps to retrain their workforce to get themdigital economy ready. I think these are some of the issues I think in the long termgovernments need to think about.

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00:08:42

Quynh Le Vo

Yeah. So again, quite similar to the trends and say, in North America or Europe,where despite the rhetoric of building back better and green recovery. Research hasshown that it really hasn't been the case. So I promised our listeners we would talkabout COP26 shortly, and we have now arrived at that segment. COP26, which isshort for the 26th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations FrameworkConvention on Climate Change, took place a few weeks ago, as many probablyknow not being able to escape the slew of articles that came out of that. But it's akey event in international climate governance, where world leaders and diplomatsconvenes coordinated global response to the climate emergency. COP26 was initiallysupposed to take place in November 2020, but that had to be postponed due to theCOVID 19 pandemic. In the meantime, we've seen an unprecedented amount ofclimate change impacts around the world, both in 2020 and 2021, from heatwavesand droughts, huge storms and flooding, not least in Southeast Asia. I think in thebuild up to the conference in early November this year. There was a general feeling ofCOP26 being a make or break moment for the future of the planet. Do you think thiswas the case also in Southeast Asia? And what could you say where the SoutheastAsian countries key priorities and expectations going into anything?

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Sharon Seah

I think that the kind of extreme weather events that we've seen in the past in thesummer has affected almost every habitable area of the world, and that has madeclimate change a very clear and present danger for people here, especially inSoutheast Asia. And I want to highlight that two of the countries that has really bornethe brunt of the impacts are actually Philippines and Vietnam and the losses here aregreat. So that was that sense, you know, going to COP26 that we were going to seemore the kind of a ratcheting up of the climate mission that the UK presidency wascalling out for, whether we were going to consign coal to the dustbin of history, whichwas that slogan being rallied across. I think for Southeast Asian countries, theirpriorities going into COP was to see that fulfillment in terms of climate finance, thepledge of the 100,000,000,000, which sadly has fallen woefully short because manyof us feel and obviously Asia actually developing countries in all eight out of 10 of thenationally determined contributions depend on international assistance. So it'sactually conditioned on receiving that assistance to meet the mitigation targets. Sothat issue has in a way been kicked down the road to be discussed at the next COP.But we are still calling out for encouraging the developed countries to be a part tohelp the countries in this region and in many other regions who in fact were not theones who had enjoyed all that progress, and they still have a lot of room to grow.

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00:11:42

Sharon Seah

They have these aspirations for economic development, but now they are also beingtold that we have to deal with the disaster response, deal with the loss and damageyou have to adapt. And that's really a lot to ask for small economies that arestruggling. So that's one of the expectations. The other and I've always said, tale oftwo, right there. You have the big political pledges that were being made US andChina coming together, India and its net zero and so on. And then there were thetechnical discussions on the conclusion for the Paris rulebook. So on the Parisrulebook side, I think many of the Southeast Asian countries had actually mentionedin their nationally determined contributions that they intend to use some form ofcarbon trading mechanism to meet their mitigation targets. So for them, Article sixconclusion and coming up with a robust mechanism was very important, and I'mglad hat it has actually been fulfilled. And the chairs, Norway and Singapore workedvery hard throughout the negotiations. I think they extended over time to try andreach an agreement that would be acceptable to all the countries and at the policylevel. I think that's good too, because we are seeing a proliferation of voluntarycarbon markets that remain unregulated. So if we had not conclude that Article six,then that proliferation will continue and the lack of regulation will become moreglaring. So having Article six in place is actually a good thing for all the players in themarket.

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00:13:10

Quynh Le Vo

Do you think the fact that Singapore was co-chairing these negotiations helpedASEAN as a regional bloc bring forth its own positions more strongly? Or do youknow if that played any kind of role in the outcome and how favorable it is toSoutheast Asian countries positions and desires?

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00:13:28

Sharon Seah

Well, I think Singapore had to be a rather impartial chair to represent all countries. Ithad to be a true facilitator in the sense that all views had to be taken intoconsideration. But I think Singapore definitely was aware of what was happening inthe region and they kept that back of their minds. I think there was a very goodrelationship between Singapore and its co-chair, the Norwegian Minister forEnvironment, and having good chemistry also helps in negotiations and helps bringeverybody on the table. So it wasn't easy task, but I'm glad that it finally concluded.And now, with this clarity in place with the ruble in place, we can really finally talkabout implementation, which is key. It's no use talking about all these high pledges ifyou are not going to make plans to implement them and as, the International EnergyAgency said. If we fully implement all pledges on time we may hit was the best casescenario at one point eight degree increase, which is still a 0.3 degree increase away,you know. So every 0.1 degrees is important for all aspects of life on this planet. Ithink people do tend to not think about the severity, and there would be zero pointzero one increase in temperature because it means for some species, it may meanextinction.

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00:14:51

Quynh Le Vo

Yes, And related to that, you also mentioned the phrase loss and damage earlier inyour response. And you told us that Philippines and Vietnam were really badlyaffected by extreme weather events and the rest of the region as well. And I wasthinking about how this year, I think at COP26, we saw a lot more attention paid andfocus on this phrase 'loss and damage finance' as a separate thing from climatefinance, which has traditionally referred more to finance towards adaptation andmitigation that developed countries have pledged to give developing countries. Butseparate from that, there has been a lot of campaigning this year towards providingfunding to build back and repair the damage that is already being caused by climatechange impacts. And I think at one point in the negotiations, they were going quitewell for developing countries, and it looks like we might get some sort of Glasgowfacility that would take this concretely forward. And at almost the last minute, then itwas kind of watered down into just some sort of discussions negotiations. What'syour take on that?

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00:15:59

Sharon Seah

I think it was very disappointing for the developing countries because it was really atthe 11th hour that it was watered down. So unfortunately, that was how the cookieon loss and damage crumbled and we have to look it up backwards. And I think thatso many of the leaders I think you have seen by yourself, the Tuvalu minister giving aspeech on needing water. I think it was really impactful in the sense that it broughthome the point that existential threat that the Pacific island is facing day after daywith this issue. And you're right, although we have discussed loss and damage inCOP26 in all the various cuts before, that wasn't that much of the angst because Ithink largely we're seeing real loss and real damage now, and it's going to beincreasing in scale and frequency and intensity, and that's worrying for many of thosenations. I don't really have an answer as to how we can revive that discussion. I hopeit can be, and I hope that developed countries will pay attention to this. It is criticaland it builds trust because ultimately, whether the cooperation succeeds or not, it'son the premise of trust.

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00:17:06

Quynh Le Vo

I think Scotland took an unprecedented step of actually pledging some moneyspecifically for loss and damage, so hopefully it's the first domino to fall, so to speak,and will inspire others to act. I still wanted to ask you about some of the pledges thatcame out of COP26. More on the mitigation side. So two of the big ones that I thinksaw a lot of news coverage was the global pledge to end deforestation by 2030. Andthen there was another one to transition away from coal power generation, both ofwhich are significant to multiple Southeast Asian countries, y ou already mentionedbefore that Indonesia and Vietnam are big coal power using countries. So could youjust give us some highlights of what specific Southeast Asian countries committed toin Glasgow?

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00:17:54

Sharon Seah

I think the coal part of the deal was yet another let down. Many developing countriesfelt played out at the end when it seemed like the big powers had this power at theback of the room and they came up with a deal to water down the phrase "phaseout" to "phase down". But you know, the definition of success really differs fromperson to person. So you can see this glass half empty, or glass half full. And forthose who tend to be more optimistic or say, OK, this is an interim step we canphase down and eventually go to phase out. I think also it has to fit the realities withina national context and within the regional context as well. So until and unless youknow, there is a real, viable alternative, many countries like Indonesia, Vietnam, it'dbe hard to wean off power source. But I do see that as a movement, it's reallyhappening, it started with China actually pledging to stop financing for overseas coalpower plants, and that's quite significant because countries in this region, areengaged with China in several of the belt initiatives. So with China kind of making thisintention to green their BRI that send a signal as well to the regional governmentsthat perhaps it's time for change. The other one on deforestation is promising, but asyou know, there was a 2014 similar lurch and that ended up with nothing. Sohopefully the Glasgow Declaration on Forestry and Land Use will not go down thesame garden path. Pardon the pun, but we've really got to ask whether the countriesare actually going to sit down seriously to amend or to edit their national plans toincorporate some of these new commitments that they've made. And when they havedone that, then we will be able to see how implementable, how operational thesepledges can be. I'm hopeful because we're not a big carbon emitter, we're in fact acarbon sink, and Indonesia is a huge carbon sink. So we've got this need to givecertain incentives to incentivise governments in the region to preserve as much asthey can and to avoid deforestation. Because I think studies have shown thatpreservation of forests is far more effective than trying to reforest your land.

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00:20:04

Quynh Le Vo

Yes, that's definitely right. It really does make a difference, whether it's newly plantedtrees or if it's old growth forest, not just for greenhouse gas emissions, but also interms of biodiversity and indigenous peoples rights and livelihoods. So there's manyaspects where it's much preferable to preserve your forests and to cut them downand regrow them. You've mentioned and we've also talked about last minute dealingsand great power relationships and this kind of thing. So going into COP26, there wasa bit of a concern that the relationship between the US and China wasn't all thatgood. There was a little bit of talk about a new Cold War, and then they kind ofsurprised us in the second week with this joint communique where they pledged towork together. So what's your take on that.

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00:20:56

Sharon Seah

I mean, that contentious relationship has sort of carried over from the Trumpadministration to Biden, and I suppose here in SEA, we do see more of that unfoldingof that rivalry. It was definitely a surprise. And I think coming out from that Bidensummit that happened last week, it does seem that climate change is one of the fewbright spots in that relationship that they could agree on amidst a long laundry list ofother issues like Tibet, Xinjiang, Taiwan and so on.

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00:21:33

Sharon Seah

It bodes well that U.S. and China could find common ground. It bodes well forSoutheast Asia as well that China has pledged carbon neutrality target, not by 2050,later by 10 years. But still, it is encouraging to the developing countries because ifChina shows leads the way and shows a model that can work, I think the othercountries will look together. So I think between the two countries, China and UnitedStates, because they hold so much in terms of R&D technology knowledge, they canfill many of the gaps here in Southeast Asia, and they can provide capacity buildingand technical know how, and get investments into the region, which is veryimportant. So again, when we circle back to the climate finance issue, if we canattain that amount of help from public finance and perhaps the private sector financecan come in to fill the gap. So overall, it bodes well, and I certainly hope that ASEANhas a role to play in exercising some of its convening power to get not only the majorcountries, but also the middle power into formulate a strategy and to work togetherfor the good of climate.

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00:22:37

Quynh Le Vo

I recall in your first Southeast Asia Climate Outlook Survey report, you also had aquestion about who South-East Asian see as leading on climate. And the winner whocame out of that was actually the EU rather than the US or China. And I'm curious,you are probably already working with your colleagues on this year's report. Are youasking the same questions this year as well? You said you added some questionsthis year's report as a follow up to the results that you got last year.... What do youexpect? Do you think we will already see the results of COP26 reflected in the resultsof this survey? Can you give us a sneak peek into that?

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00:23:22

Sharon Seah

Actually, yeah, the results we edit at the very last minute. Well, which countrydemonstrate that climate leadership because we saw that there was an absence ofglobal leadership over the last few years. I mean, in particular, when President Trumpdecided that he would withdraw the U.S. from the Paris Agreement. So the EU cameout tops, and that was followed by Japan. And then we followed up with anotherquestion which country do you think can play a more proactive role? And surprise,surprise, actually, although the U.S. performed badly in the leadership question, theyrose up a little in the second question, which means that the people in this regionactually do hope, m aybe it's aspirational, they hope that the U.S. can do more forthe region. So there's this residual reservoir of goodwill, perhaps towards the U.S.,and that might be something that we will want to pick up, given the fact that theBiden administration now has a 'build back better world' partnership and we want toknow whether people view this partnership positively, negatively. And these are someof the issues and some of the other issues that we want to pick up on. For instance,in the first survey where we asked questions about nationally determinedcontributions. We realized that the general public were not at all fair with the term,and they weren't able to take those questions as well as we hope they could. Butmaybe with the momentum from COP26 and people reading a lot more these NDCsand long term strategies and so on and the news, they might be able to come backto those questions next year. But these are some of the things that we're thinking of,but will be, you know, we're always open to see what might be useful for thepolicymakers in the region to include in the survey.

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00:24:59

Quynh Le Vo

When is the report coming out again? I'm really looking forward to reading it.

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00:25:04

Sharon Seah

Not yet. We start in April every year. We will launch the survey itself in June, and thenthe report will be sometime in August or September.

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00:25:13

Quynh Le Vo

Okay, great. As I said, I'm looking forward to seeing it and what could be extractedfrom it. So, Sharon, thank you very much for talking with me today and sharing thework of the Climate Change in Southeast Asia program with the Nordic Asia podcastlisteners. For those who are interested, where can they find more information aboutthe program and are there any ways to get involved in its work?

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00:25:38

Sharon Seah

Thanks for asking me that question, so I'm going to give you a link that you caninclude the bottom of the podcast for people to visit the page, but otherwise you canemail climatechange@iseas.edu.sg, to get on our mailing list and we'll keep youinformed of what we're up to. And of course, we're always looking for people who areinterested and want to be involved in this part of the world, and I'll look thank youagain.

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00:26:04

Quynh Le Vo

That's really great. I myself am really interested in the way Southeast Asia is adaptingto the effects of climate change. So your program on the urbanization and thoseeffects are especially interesting to me, and I'm looking forward to seeing someresearch results or other outcomes of that aspect of your program. So thanks again,Sharon. My name is Quynh Le Vo and I've been talking to Sharon Seah from ISEASYusof-Ishak Institute Climate Change in Southeast Asia program. Thank you forjoining the Nordic Asia Podcast, showcasing Nordic collaboration and studying Asia.

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00:26:44

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