Solar and wind capacity in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) region increased by 20% in 2023, bringing the total to more than 28 gigawatts (GW).
The technologies now make up 9% of electricity generating capacity in ASEAN countries – Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam – according to a new report from Global Energy Monitor (GEM).
Combined with a large base of hydropower, the growth in wind and solar takes the bloc close to its renewable energy capacity target of 35% by 2025, GEM says.
Building an additional 17GW of utility-scale solar and wind projects in the next two years – those that feed power directly into the electricity grid – would be sufficient to reach the goal, it adds.
In fact, it says the region is on track to sail past its target, nearly doubling wind and solar capacity in the next two years by adding a further 23GW of new projects
An even larger 220GW pipeline of new utility-scale wind and solar capacity has been announced, or entered pre-construction or construction stages, according to GEM’s analysis, though only 6GW of this is currently being built.
However, ASEAN countries collectively have one of the fastest-growing economies in the world and have seen very rapid recent electricity demand growth of 22% per year between 2015 and 2021. This has translated into continued support for gas and coal power in the region, even though demand growth is expected to slow.
While renewables have the potential to temper the growth in fossil fuel demand, wind and solar expansion face regulatory hurdles and a lack of supportive policy, GEM adds.
Success so far
ASEAN added 3GW of solar capacity in 2023, increasing installed capacity by 17% over 2022 levels, according to GEM’s report.
Despite solar seeing a larger overall capacity increase, operational wind capacity saw a larger comparative rise, growing by 29%, or 2GW, since January 2023.
Offshore wind now accounts for 2GW of the operating 9GW of utility-scale wind capacity in the region.
Given the technical challenges and associated higher costs of offshore wind, this is particularly noteworthy, GEM states.
Vietnam has by far the most utility-scale solar and wind capacity of all the ASEAN nations, as seen in the chart below.
The increase in utility-scale solar and wind capacity over the past year has come as a result of a supportive policy environment across many countries in the ASEAN region, says GEM.
In 2017, Vietnam deployed a series of investment policies designed to bring utility scale-solar projects into operation, for example. Two feed-in-tariff (FiT) programs were deployed by the country’s state-owned utility between 2017 and 2020.
However, when these programs expired, Vietnam failed to administer a replacement, GEM says. As such, despite the nation adding 12GW of utility-scale solar capacity between 2019 and 2021, gaps in energy policy have started to limit progress.
Just 1GW of utility-scale solar and wind was commissioned in Vietnam in 2022, in comparison with nearly 4GW in 2021.
Thailand and the Philippines currently have the second and third highest utility-scale solar and wind capacity in the region, with 3GW of operating capacity each.
Thailand is the second largest economy in ASEAN after Indonesia and has benefitted from being seen as a “low-risk country”, notes GEM, with few barriers for investment.
The Philippines, meanwhile, hosts a “streamlined project bidding system”, which allows for an “unencumbered pipeline of project development”, GEM says. Currently, around three-quarters of its operational utility-scale solar and wind capacity comes from solar.
Future growth
There is currently a total of 222GW of announced, pre-construction and construction-stage utility-scale wind and solar capacity in ASEAN countries, according to GEM’s research.
More than 185GW of this pipeline of projects is in the Philippines and Vietnam, meaning they account for more than 80% of prospective capacity in the region. This is shown in the figure below.
More than 60% of the pipeline in Vietnam and the Philippines comes from planned offshore wind development, GEM says, of 72GW and 52GW respectively.
The Philippines is responsible for 45% of prospective capacity in ASEAN countries. Its Green Energy Auction Program (GEAP) aims to facilitate the development of more than 11GW of renewable energy.
In March 2023, it held an auction securing just over 300 bids to develop 3GW of solar, onshore wind and bioenergy with 2024–2026 start dates.
This capacity fell short of the level targeted, but represented a 75% increase on the amount secured in 2022’s auction, notes GEM.
Offshore wind comprises 52% of the Philippines’ prospective utility-scale renewable capacity, with five times more offshore wind than onshore.
In April 2023, the nation issued an executive order, outlining cooperation between private investors and the government on offshore wind. Since then, offshore wind contracts have more than doubled to nearly 80, representing 61GW of capacity, GEM notes.
Vietnam has more than 86GW of prospective capacity, including 72GW of offshore wind. However, just 2% is currently being built, due in part to the country’s “lack of concise and reliable renewable energy policies that could serve as a crucial roadmap for project implementation”, states GEM.
A further 40GW of utility-scale solar and wind projects in Vietnam are considered by GEM to be “shelved”, because they have seen no progression or announcements in the past two years.
Vietnam is working on a just energy transition partnership (JETP) with a group of developed countries. It also released its latest national electricity development plan for 2021–2030, also known as the power development plan 8 (PDP8).
The alignment of these policies and funding schemes is still in development, and therefore their impact cannot yet be determined, notes GEM.
Laos is aiming to “punch above its economic weight” in the development of utility-scale solar and wind capacity, GEM says. At more than 3GW, its prospective capacity rivals that of Thailand, despite the country’s economy being only 2% of the size.
Laos’ prospective utility-scale solar and wind capacity surpasses that of Malaysia by more than 150%, despite having an economy that is more than thirty times smaller. This ambition is being driven by financial collaboration with ASEAN partners, according to GEM.
Laos is set to house the region’s largest onshore windfarm. Monsoon windfarm is currently under construction and expected to have a capacity of 600 megawatts (MW) when complete.
Despite this large pipeline of ASEAN wind and solar projects, however, only 6.3GW (3%) is currently under construction, notes GEM.
Reaching renewable ambitions
The target for renewables to make up 35% of electricity generating capacity by 2025 is “easily attainable and ultimately unambitious for ASEAN”, according to GEM.
Renewables already make up 32% of electricity capacity in ASEAN countries, GEM says, meaning the 35% target can be met easily.
Moreover, while annual growth in electricity consumption is expected to slow from the annual 22% since 2014 to just 3% a year out to 2030, GEM says rising demand will continue to drive expansion in fossil fuel power infrastructure in the region.
Hitting the 35% target would only require ASEAN countries to commission 17GW of new renewable capacity by 2025, GEM says, of which 6.3GW is already under construction.
Yet there is in excess of 220GW of prospective utility-scale solar and wind in development, with a total of 23GW set to be operational by 2025.
This means the region is on track to beat its target and nearly double its installed wind and solar capacity in just two years, according to GEM, with scope to go even further and reduce the need for fossil fuel expansion.
For now, fossil fuels remain entrenched in the region, restricting new investment in utility-scale wind and solar, GEM states.
Gas and coal each account for approximately 30% of ASEAN countries’ total installed capacity, and coal-fired power capacity has seen an annual growth rate of 7% since 2017.
With electricity demand growth currently outpacing the rollout of renewable energy capacity, gas and coal are expected to continue to grow in coming years, GEM says.
National energy policies have touted the use of gas as a “stepping stone” in the energy transition and ASEAN countries are likely to be net importers of gas by 2025.
Insufficient grid infrastructure investment is also a “persistent hurdle” for integrating utility-scale solar and wind, notes GEM.
As such, while there is a clear effort being made to ramp up renewable energy, this continues to be complicated by a buildout of fossil fuels and low solar and wind construction rates, concludes GEM. The report adds:
“By doubling down on bringing as much of the 220GW of prospective utility-scale solar and wind projects into fruition, ASEAN countries will be poised to not only meet regional renewable energy targets, but pave the way to transition from fossil fuels.”
The post Wind and solar capacity in south-east Asia climbs 20% in just one year, report finds appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Wind and solar capacity in south-east Asia climbs 20% in just one year, report finds
Dozens of countries have called out growing “coordinated attacks” by fossil fuel interests aimed at undermining the role of climate science in the UN negotiations at the mid-year talks in Bonn.
Under the banner of ‘Friends of Science’, in an overflowing press conference room lined with negotiators and civil society supporters, diplomats from Fiji, Nepal, the European Union, Switzerland, Sierra Leone and Panama vowed to ensure that decision-making in the UN climate process remains based on the “best available science”. That includes reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the UN’s climate science body, they said.
While steering clear of singling out any specific country, they said efforts to cast doubt on established scientific concepts, such as the 1.5 global warming limit, are led by “the usual suspects” and those who think “science threatens their economic prospects”.
Saudi Arabia and India have opposed calls in draft texts to encourage scientific work on scenarios that would minimise the magnitude and duration of any overshoot of 1.5C, according to one negotiator in the room and summaries of closed-door discussions published by a reporting service.
UN chief António Guterres conceded last year that a temporary breach of the key warming limit is inevitable, while urging countries to redouble efforts to bring temperatures back down.
‘Polluted narrative’
Scientists have long established that burning fossil fuels is the primary cause of man-made climate change and a rapid shift away from oil, coal and gas is essential to curb global warming.
Saudi Arabia is dependent on oil and gas exports, while India largely relies on coal to power its economic development.
One negotiator said that research on how climate action can be equitable for developing countries, produced by Indian universities, had been published too late to be incorporated into the last IPCC assessment report in 2023. This incident led the Indian government to try and discredit the IPCC, they said. Some Indian scientists have argued that the IPCC’s scenarios are unfair on developing countries.
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Saudi Arabia and India have played down the importance of making sure that the latest IPCC assessments – regarded as the gold standard of climate science – are available for the next global stocktake, the UN scorecard of climate action around the world.
“Anyone that is blocking references to science – they are not our friends,” Sivendra Michael, lead negotiator for Fiji, told a press conference, highlighting the rise of a “polluted narrative” both inside and outside the negotiating rooms.
1.5C is a ‘hard limit’
Speaking for the AILAC coalition of Latin American countries, Panama’s Ana Aguilar said they went to Bonn to negotiate positions, not to negotiate the facts laid out by science.
“We see coordinated efforts to cast doubt on the best available science driven by a narrow set of interests, not by the needs of our people,” she added. “We have seen this playbook before… manufacture doubt, delay the response and let the vulnerable people pay this bill.”
The ‘Friends of Science’ coalition stressed that the 1.5C goal of the Paris Agreement cannot be negotiated, as the survival of the most climate vulnerable communities is at stake if it is permanently breached.
“Science tells us that 1.5C is a hard limit for many countries, including the small island developing states and least developed countries,” said Manjeet Dhakal, a negotiator for Nepal. “We still have a chance to keep 1.5 degrees in reach and minimise the overshoot if we act fast and drastically.”
Long-running IPCC standoff
While diplomats claimed attacks on science are broadening, one long-standing issue of contention is whether the latest assessment reports of the IPCC will be ready in time for the next UN global stocktake due to start this November and end in 2028.
This matters because, as some experts have pointed out, previous IPCC findings played a key role in the first such exercise, which culminated at COP28 in Dubai in the landmark agreement on transitioning away from fossil fuels in energy systems.
Since the start of the latest IPCC assessment cycle, known as AR7, a battle over the timing has dragged on for over two years at successive IPCC meetings, with governments repeatedly failing to find a breakthrough.
A large majority of nations have been pushing for an accelerated timeline that would ensure the AR7 reports can be fed into the UN’s global stocktake. But a group of countries, including Saudi Arabia, India, China, Russia and Kenya, have said at previous IPCC meetings they want a longer process, arguing a fast-tracked assessment would put a burden on developing countries with limited resources.
Science and the stocktake
That fight has now bled into the Bonn talks where governments began discussing the arrangements for the next stocktake. At a session earlier this week, most developed countries, Latin American and small island states, and the world’s poorest nations emphasised the assessment of collective climate action must be guided by the “best available science” – code for the findings of the IPCC reports.
The Maldives, speaking for small island states, said IPCC science remains “essential to the integrity, credibility and usefulness” of the stocktake. AILAC said that starting the process “on the right footing” requires a political decision on the timeline to deliver the AR7 reports in time. Switzerland said IPCC reports “ask more than is politically comfortable, but that is precisely why they must guide every decision we make”.
Saudi Arabia, however, said no particular scientific input – and in particular what comes out of the IPCC – should be prioritised. Similarly, India warned against creating “some kind of preferred hierarchy” in the role that any specific source of information should play in the process.
Ghana’s Antwi-Boasiako Amoah, who chairs the African Group, told a press conference on Tuesday that some countries think rushing to get IPCC inputs into the global stocktake could “undermine or compromise the IPCC process”. “Africa is for science,” he said, without saying where the continent stands on the IPCC timeline.
Crunch talks in October
At the “Friends of Science” press conference, Dhakal pushed back on the idea that science would have to be rushed to be incorporated. He said the IPCC leadership has “perfectly made it clear” that they can deliver the report before the global stocktake. “It is the scientists who are saying they can deliver it on time,” he said.
The discussion will be picked up again at the next IPCC session in October, where its boss Jim Skea is hoping to reach an agreement. “As a scientist myself, I cannot overstate the importance of this decision,” he told governments in Bonn last week.
Andreas Sieber, head of political strategy at campaigning group 350.org, told Climate Home News that the debate may sound procedural, “but it is anything but”. “Science is the backbone of the Paris Agreement ambition cycle, and the evidence assessed through AR7 will help determine not only the emissions pathways countries pursue, but also how the world responds to mounting climate losses and who receives support,” he said in Bonn.
The post Science ‘under attack’ from fossil fuel interests at UN climate talks appeared first on Climate Home News.
Science ‘under attack’ from fossil fuel interests at UN climate talks
Climate Change
Cropped 17 June 2026: Coral reef ‘hope’ | Ocean talks | Plant flowering times ‘shift’
We handpick and explain the most important stories at the intersection of climate, land, food and nature over the past fortnight.
This is an online version of Carbon Brief’s fortnightly Cropped email newsletter.
Subscribe for free here.
Key developments
Ocean talks
MAKING WAVES: African and Commonwealth countries issued a “call to action” to implement the High Seas Treaty at the Our Ocean Conference in Kenya this week, reported the Associated Press. The summit, which ends on 18 June, is focused on ocean issues including “climate change, biodiversity and pollution”, said the newswire. The UK government announced £13.9m in marine-related funding at the summit.
OCEAN ‘STRAIN’: Climate change, pollution, overfishing and biodiversity loss are putting oceans under “severe strain”, according to a UN report. The third “world ocean assessment” noted that conservation efforts have also “grown”, including through “nature-based solutions, ecosystem restoration and sustainable management techniques”. Meanwhile, another UN report said that fisheries and aquaculture production reached an all-time high of 235m tonnes in 2024.
OBSERVATION ISSUES: Scientists told the Guardian that the Trump administration’s plan to dismantle a key ocean-observation system run by the US would “severely degrade” the accuracy of weather forecasts around the world. Several Democratic and one Republican lawmaker pushed back against the plan to get rid of the system, reported the Associated Press. [For more, see the first edition of Cited, Carbon Brief’s newsletter on climate science.]
Plant and fungi update
OFF-KILTER: Plant flowering times have “shifted significantly” over the last century, according to an AI-assisted analysis of 8m “digitised herbarium specimens” in the latest “state of the world plants and fungi” report from the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew. The report stated there have been “both advances and delays” in flowering date, with a median shift of 2.5 days per decade in either direction. The greatest variation was observed in the tropics, it added.
‘NEW ERA’: The report highlighted that Kew recently completed a digitisation of 7.4m herbarium and fungarium specimens in its collection. The ongoing digitisation of specimens around the world, alongside AI technology, could “transform understanding of biodiversity loss and climate change and pave the way to resolving these seemingly intractable crises”, it said.
EXTINCTION RISK: In its coverage of the report, the Guardian said that AI and digitalisation could help scientists document “vital” plant species “before they vanish”. About 40% of the world’s “assessed” 70,000 plant species are at risk of extinction, while a further 330,000 are yet to be analysed, according to the newspaper. The situation for fungi is “even more stark”, it reported, with 90% of an estimated 2m species still “unknown to science” and less than 1% of known species assessed for extinction risk.
News and views
- BEEF TRACKS: A “landmark” law in Colombia requiring the beef industry to prove supply chains are deforestation-free has taken effect, reported the Associated Press. The measure is part of efforts to “reverse decades of forest loss, much of it driven by the expansion of cattle ranching into previously forested areas”, noted the newswire.
- CONTINGENCY PLAN: With El Niño conditions officially confirmed as underway, the Indian government called for an “overhaul” of agricultural districts’ plans for managing the impact of below-normal rainfall on crops, reported Down to Earth. Around 150-200 districts have been identified as “most critical” based on projections, the outlet noted.
- MEATIER: Global meat supply has increased fourfold in the past six decades, according to a UN report covered by the Guardian. Agriculture’s “planet-heating emissions are forecast to rise by 7.6% over the next decade” as food production continues to grow, the newspaper said.
- TREES, NOT TARMAC: Kenya’s former chief justice, David Maraga, was among a number of protesters arrested in Nairobi for demonstrating against plans to turn 75 acres of Nairobi National Park into a car park, reported Kenya’s Daily Nation. Demonstrators were en route to deliver a petition to Kenya’s Wildlife Service when they were interrupted by anti-riot police officers, according to the newspaper.
- MANGROVES BACK, ALRIGHT: A new study covered by BBC News found that mangrove forests are “staging an unexpected comeback” globally. The broadcaster said mangroves had been “declining rapidly as they were cleared for fish farms and housing”, but the world is now “gaining more mangroves than it has been losing”.
- ‘LIMITED’ PROGRESS: Some 59% of the world’s largest financial institutions do not have a deforestation policy in place, according to the latest “forest 500” report from Global Canopy. The report – which assesses the 150 financial institutions that provide the most financing to the 500 companies with the “greatest influence” on deforestation – described finance sector progress on forest loss in 2025 as “limited”.
Spotlight
Coral reef ‘hope’
This week, Carbon Brief reports on research estimating coral reef resilience.
New research offers a sliver of “hope” that 30% of the world’s coral reefs could be “resilient” against the harmful effects of climate change.
The study, which is in the final stages of peer review and due to be published soon, identified swathes of reefs that have the best potential to withstand and recover from marine heatwaves and other stressors.
Climate change is a major threat to the survival of coral reefs. In a 2018 report, the UN’s science body warned that reefs could decline by an additional 70-90% at 1.5C of warming and as much as 99% under 2C.
The areas of potentially resilient reefs identified in the new study span almost 166,000 square kilometres – an area twice the size of Scotland.
These reefs are spread across 71 countries and 100 territories, but 61% are found in the territorial waters of just five nations – Australia, the Bahamas, Cuba, Indonesia and the Philippines.
The lead study author, Dr Kyle Zawada from Macquarie University in Australia, told Carbon Brief that the research shows the areas that could most likely “persist through climate change”. He added:
“[Coal reefs] are obviously in dire straits – but that’s not to say there are not pockets of resistance and pockets of resilience.”
Fewer than 30% of the reefs deemed to be the most climate-resilient are contained in protected or conserved areas, the study noted.
The map below shows a snapshot of the findings, highlighting the Great Barrier Reef off the north-eastern coast of Australia. The light pink areas are regular reefs, while the slightly darker pink are “climate-resilient” reefs.
Reef maps
The team, led by researchers from Macquarie University and the Wildlife Conservation Society, used the findings from more than 45,000 research surveys on corals over 1960-2025 in modelling simulations to create a map of coral cover around the world in 2020 and projections for 2050.
The modelling looked at various scenarios of future emissions and the researchers developed criteria to determine which reefs could be best positioned to survive or recover from extreme events and higher temperatures.
This specified that, for example, larger-sized reefs and those with a wide diversity of coral species tend to be more resilient than smaller areas with a lower variety of coral.
Zawada told Carbon Brief that the study does not replace real-life observations of how reefs respond to extremes. But, he added, it offers a “good guess” of areas to protect:
“It would be nice to say that there are these little reefs of hope, obviously with the massive asterisks that this doesn’t mean that these ones are out of the woods…and to sort of use that as a rallying call for us to take that hope forward and have a look at these reefs.”
Watch, read, listen
WAY DOWN: An interactive article in the New York Times detailed the ongoing “quest” to mine the deep sea.
‘PING-PONG SPONGES’: The Guardian delved into the “secrets of the deep sea”.
DENTAL DAMAGE: A dentist wrote about how “extreme heat is turning Pakistani farmworkers’ mouths into hostile environments for their own teeth” in the Earth Island Journal.
‘PIG ELECTION’: DeSmog explored the impacts of Denmark’s plans to “radically overhaul its drinking water policy as part of a raft of sweeping reforms to the country’s livestock industry”.
New science
- Lower rainfall levels, driven by deforestation, led to a reduction in soya bean production in southern Brazil over 1982–2018 | Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
- A “partial ecosystem collapse scenario” that considers changes to tropical timber, wild pollination and marine fisheries services could increase the annual debt-servicing costs of 23 countries by $162bn | Nature Ecology & Evolution
- Around 7% of the global population of Tapanuli orangutans – the “world’s rarest ape” – was killed after extreme rainfall led to “widespread landslides” in Sumatra, Indonesia, in 2025 | Current Biology
In the diary
- 19 June-27 June: London climate action week
- 21 June: Colombian presidential elections (second round)
- 22-26 June: 26th meeting of the UN open-ended informal consultative process on oceans and the law of the sea | New York City
- 30 June-4 July: 4th meeting of partners of the Global Peatlands Initiative | Lima, Peru
The post Cropped 17 June 2026: Coral reef ‘hope’ | Ocean talks | Plant flowering times ‘shift’ appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Cropped 17 June 2026: Coral reef ‘hope’ | Ocean talks | Plant flowering times ‘shift’
Climate Change
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Jim Zeigler first served on the body nearly 50 years ago. Now the Republican is hoping his opposition to data centers will stave off a Democratic victory in November.
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