A UN effort to keep the threatened 1.5C warming limit alive is exposing deep divisions over the future of fossil fuels, pitting climate-vulnerable nations seeking a faster move away from coal, oil and gas against major emerging economies and producers that oppose targeting particular energy sources.
As countries weigh in on the “Belém Mission to 1.5”, a new process launched at COP30 last year to address the global shortfall in climate ambition, submissions show that small island nations and least developed countries (LDCs) want the initiative to help speed up a shift away from fossil fuels. Their calls for a focus on emissions-cutting measures in the energy sector are supported by the EU and the UK.
But the “like-minded developing countries” (LMDC) bloc – which includes China, India – and Arab states led by Saudi Arabia have warned against singling out specific energy sources or using the mission to assess how individual countries are performing on emissions cuts. Instead, they want its scope narrowed to identifying primarily what rich countries should do to cut their own emissions and provide more climate cash to developing nations.
Keeping 1.5C “within reach”
The split hints at a fight to come at COP31 in November over what the work programme’s findings should say and how much weight they should carry in the summit’s outcome.
Governments launched the Belém Mission to 1.5 at last year’s UN climate summit in the Brazilian Amazon city, after the latest round of national climate plans left the world set to shoot past the Paris Agreement temperature goals. Full implementation of current pledges is expected to limit global warming to only around 2.3-2.5 C by 2100, according to the UN.
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The current and two preceding COP presidencies – Türkiye, Brazil and Azerbaijan – are gathering views from governments on how to raise the ambition of national climate plans (NDCs) and adaptation plans (NAPs).
The initiative will culminate in a report at COP31 outlining priority actions for keeping the 1.5C goal “within reach”. But the proposals submitted by individual governments and negotiating blocs representing nearly four-fifths of all countries point to wildly diverging visions of what the Belém Mission should achieve, especially on the transition away from fossil fuels.
Tracking COP28 commitments
The Marshall Islands has proposed an ambitious package of concrete actions that would enable deep emissions reductions, led by a global commitment to build no new oil, coal and gas infrastructure. Together with its fellow Pacific island of Vanuatu, it also calls for a formal process to monitor progress towards the COP28 energy commitments, map fossil fuel subsidies and help countries phase them out.
The EU also said in its submission that the Mission to 1.5C is “well placed” to provide updates on how countries’ national climate plans have incorporated the COP28 agreement, including the commitment to accelerate a transition from fossil fuels in energy systems.
Countries wanting to build on the COP28 Dubai agreement have struggled to find a dedicated space for those discussions in the face of opposition from fossil fuel producers and big emerging economies.
The COP28 outcomes in response to the first stocktake of global climate action represent “one package… and not a pick-and-choose menu”, the European Commission emphasised in a thinly veiled reference to comments made by the Saudi energy minister in 2024 that the Dubai deal was an “à la carte menu” allowing nations to choose their own priority.
Push to boost NDC ambition
The Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) also advocated in its submission for “high-level approaches” towards developed countries and other major emitters ahead of COP31 to spur them to produce updated NDCs with additional emissions-cutting measures.
Vanuatu called on the COP presidencies overseeing the Mission to 1.5C to “exhibit leadership” by taking steps at home to phase out fossil fuels and reduce their “inefficient” fossil fuel subsidies.
Azerbaijan and Türkiye continue to rely heavily on fossil fuels in their energy systems, while Azerbaijan and Brazil remain significant oil and gas producers with plans to expand output.
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In its submission, the LDC group of the world’s poorest nations says the failure to align global climate commitments with a pathway to keep warming under 1.5C is driven primarily by insufficient ambition from major emitters.
The Mission to 1.5C should focus its efforts on the “highest-impact” and “most feasible” solutions to curb emissions such as phasing out fossil fuels, it added.
Both the island nations and the LDCs, as well as the African group of nations, stress that significantly scaling up financial resources, and making it easier to access them, are necessary steps to enable the global energy transition.
Focus on “emissions”, not energy sources
Fossil fuel producers and several large developing economies, however, argue that the mission risks straying beyond its mandate if it singles out particular fuels or evaluates countries’ climate plans.
The Arab group, which is led by Saudi Arabia and includes the UAE, Qatar and Egypt, wrote that it should maintain a focus on “emissions management” rather than targeting specific sectors or energy sources.
Their submission says investments in fossil fuels “must increase” both to better manage the emissions associated with their production and to meet growing energy demand.
The LMDCs, a negotiating bloc that includes China and India, similarly argue that climate action should address emissions regardless of how they are produced, warning that energy sources should not be traded off against the need for growth. “Poverty eradication and sustainable development remain a key challenge for developing countries, which cannot be compromised in the name of 1.5°C,” the group’s submission says.
No “parallel” processes
For both Arab states and LMDCs, the mission’s primary goal should be to identify how rich countries that are historically responsible for the bulk of emissions can be required to further cut their greenhouse gases and channel more money to developing countries.
Both groups also caution against allowing the initiative to evolve into what they describe as a “parallel process” that could assess countries’ climate plans or create new expectations for what developing countries should do. Instead, they argue, it should simply produce a report identifying options for international cooperation.
The two sides disagree just as sharply on what should happen to the mission’s report once it lands. AOSIS and the LDC group explicitly want its findings carried forward into the COP31 outcome decision text and used to inform future negotiating rounds. The LMDC bloc, on the other hand, wants a guarantee that the report will not be used to support other processes.
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UN bid to keep 1.5C alive exposes deepening divisions over fossil fuels
When oil and gas shipments stopped flowing through the Strait of Hormuz at the start of the Iran war, Southeast Asian nations were left reeling as the supply crunch laid bare their acute reliance on fossil fuel imports.
As prices soared, governments in the region scrambled to introduce emergency energy-saving measures – from a four-day working week to curbs on air conditioning. Thailand revived decommissioned coal plants while the Philippines, which imports nearly all of its oil, declared a “national energy emergency”.
But the crisis has also prompted renewed resolve to find a long-term solution to their vulnerability at a time when electricity demand is booming to power the region’s growing industry, cooling needs and the mushrooming of energy-hungry data centres.
At the heart of Southeast Asian nations’ response is a longstanding infrastructure project to connect the region’s power grids by 2045 and enable cross-border trading of clean electricity through a network of underground and subsea interconnectors.
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The plans will allow nations with high renewable energy generation potential to trade surplus power to their neighbours and major demand centres like Singapore, helping to integrate more renewables into the power mix and reduce reliance on fossil fuel imports.
“[It] will give us more energy security,” the Philippines’ energy secretary, Sharon Garin, told a press conference after a meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations’ (ASEAN) energy ministers last week, when they discussed accelerating the delivery of the regional grid as part of measures to respond to the energy crisis.
“The Philippines is rich in solar power, Malaysia is rich in hydropower and Indonesia has geothermal: different countries have different resources. [The ASEAN Power Grid] will optimise the utilisation of renewables to the benefits of each member state,” said Garin.
But turning this decade-old political vision into a reality has been slow, held up by painstaking work to harmonise a patchwork of regulatory and legal frameworks and mobilise the private capital needed to build cross-border infrastructure.
More than $300 billion is needed to expand and modernise the region’s fragile grids to support the projected energy demand increase by 2050. This includes $27 billion required to deliver the cross-border interconnections by 2040, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA).
Every year of delay could cost the region billions of dollars in additional fuel costs and lock in new gas infrastructure for decades to come, according to analysis by global energy think-tank Ember.
The building block for energy security
With electrification high on the agenda of the COP31 climate talks in Türkiye next month, there is growing attention on the need to modernise and expand grid infrastructure to cope with growing electricity use and more renewables in the power mix.
Clean electrification and energy efficiency could deliver about a third of cumulative carbon emission reductions between 2026 and 2050, according to the International Renewable Energy Agency’s World Energy Outlook. But delivering that would require doubling annual global grid investment to $1 trillion between now and 2035.
Last month, the UN launched an initiative to accelerate investment into expanding and modernising grids in Southeast Asia and Africa.
First conceptualised in 1997, the ASEAN Power Grid has gained fresh impetus in recent years as countries turn to renewables to cut their emissions and move away from volatile fossil fuel markets.
Energy supply disruption caused by wars in Ukraine and the Middle East has strengthened the case for regional grid connections. Before this year’s conflict began, the Middle East accounted for 60% of Southeast Asia’s crude oil imports. Competition for fewer, more expensive oil and gas shipments has left Southeast Asia facing a $160 billion energy import bill this year. Based on current policies, this could rise to $400 billion by mid-century.
In the Philippines last week, energy ministers agreed on an enhanced planning framework to deliver the ASEAN Power Grid and made progress on regulatory guidelines.
Garin said ministers were considering accelerating the project’s delivery. “The first study was to connect [by] 2045 – that’s too far,” she said.
A strong business case
The economic benefits of the plan have “captured the political imagination” of leaders in the region, Robert Cooke, grids advocacy lead at the Global Renewables Alliance, told Climate Home News. “The business case is stronger than ever,” he said.
“If countries were to go about building their own separate grids, of course that would be an expensive endeavour. But the discussion around the ASEAN Power Grid includes what costs could we share in building out this grid,” added Tiza Mafira, director of the Indonesia office for the Climate Policy Initiative.
Stronger grids would help the region meet collective targets to increase the share of renewable energy in total primary energy supply from 14% to 30% and in installed power capacity from 34% to 45% by 2030.
Connecting and pooling dispersed renewable resources would also help smooth local power shortages caused by daily and seasonal variations, reducing the need for backup gas plants and battery storage.
The IEA found the ASEAN Power Grid could help unlock some of the 20 terawatts of untapped solar and wind potential across Southeast Asia – an amount around 55 times the region’s current total power capacity.
From lines on a map to shovels in the ground
Rather than building a single unified network, the ASEAN Power Grid is developing cross-border links between neighbouring countries and smaller groups of nations.
As of 2025, nine of 18 priority interconnection projects are operational – accounting for around 10 GW of capacity with an additional 13.7 GW planned by 2040.
Source: Ember
A power line channelling up to 200 MW of clean electricity generated from hydropower in Laos to Singapore via Thailand and Malaysia has emerged as a key building block for grid-to-grid trading.
Progress on technical discussions will also help provide the clarity the private sector needs to invest in bankable projects, said Cooke.
In 2025, the Asian Development Bank and the World Bank announced a dedicated funding initiative to support the project.
“The enabling pieces are emerging,” said Monalisa Dimalanta, former chair of the Philippine Energy Regulatory Commission and the National Renewable Energy Board. “But the timelines remain unclear and a 2045 vision cannot answer today’s emergency,” she said.
“A power grid… that exists only on paper will not keep the lights on.”
Singapore: the delivery test
The implications of failing to deliver the ASEAN Power Grid are most acute in Singapore.
Constrained by space, with few renewable energy resources and dependent on gas for more than 90% of its electricity mix, Singapore has emerged as a leading proponent of a regional power grid as it seeks to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050.
To meet its power needs, the city-state aims to import 6 GW of low-carbon electricity by 2035, around one-third of its energy demand – a target which it is set to miss, however.
The plans heavily rely on building interconnectors to import solar power from Indonesia across the South China Sea. Around 40% of the ASEAN Power Grid’s planned interconnections are directed towards Singapore.
Ember’s analysis found that delivering the planned interconnectors by 2035 could enable renewables to meet nearly half of Singapore’s electricity demand. Delays could drop this to only a fraction of the country’s needs, and risk locking in new gas capacity until the 2050s. Without the ASEAN Power Grid, Singapore would need to install an additional 300 MW of gas-fired power capacity to bridge the gap by 2035.
Already home to the largest data centre capacity in Southeast Asia, Singapore’s electricity demand keeps rising, driven by the boom in AI infrastructure. “At one point, [it] either has to build a new gas plant, or it has to get the interconnection to supply that demand,” Lam Pham, an Ember energy analyst and the report’s author, told Climate Home News.
A region at a crossroads
With capital increasingly available, political will is now the biggest risk standing in the way of timely execution, said Pham.
But there are other challenges too, including the lack of frameworks on transmission tariffs and how to share the benefits of clean power trading. “It’s really hard to justify projects without that,” he said.
In addition, climate-fuelled weather events, including extreme heat and tropical storms, pose major threats to the region’s grid infrastructure. Experts say stronger grid interconnection can isolate damage and build the system’s resilience.
Efforts to deliver on the ASEAN Power Grid also come as ministers stressed the “continued importance of oil and gas” for economic development and seek to secure fossil fuel supplies and stockpile oil to prepare for the next crisis.
Despite an acceleration of renewable deployment, particularly solar, coal still generates nearly half the electricity supply in ASEAN member states and dominates the power mix in Indonesia, the Philippines and Vietnam, while Singapore and Thailand rely on gas.
While these measures might help the region with the immediate crisis, “the long-term answer is more domestic renewable energy, electrification, storage, efficiency and regional power trade”, Dimalanta said.
Main image: An aerial view of the MTerra solar project in the Philippines, set to become one of the world’s largest solar-and-battery developments (Photo by Ezra Acayan/Getty Images)
The post SE Asia speeds up plan for connected clean power grid after oil shock appeared first on Climate Home News.
SE Asia speeds up plan for connected clean power grid after oil shock
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