Emissions in Southeast Asia
All countries in the Southeast Asia region have ratified the Paris Agreement, agreeing to decrease global warming via strategies such as reduction of carbon dioxide emissions and seek to reach “global peaking of Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions as soon as possible”. Thus, understanding the emissions level of the region allows us to better understand how the region is performing in terms of emissions reduction. We will be looking into the relative per capita emission of GHG in the region in this article.
Although the levels of the per capita emissions are different for each country, the region has been experiencing a decline in per capita emissions over the years. Each category of emissions, including carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide emission, has decreased.
Brunei has the highest per capita GHG emission in the region. Its emissions are mainly produced by the energy sector as 99% of Brunei’s electricity is generated from natural gas. Its oil and gas industry is also another source as the country produce to meet energy demand on its domestic and exports market. On the consumption end, the main source of GHG emissions comes from the direct combustion of fossil fuels in transportation and energy consumption.[i] Brunei remains the top GHG emitter in the region in each sub-category. Albeit slowly, it has been decreasing its per capita emission after 1997.
Among the countries shown,[ii] Myanmar has been decreasing its per capita emission since the 1990s. It has maintained a low per capita emission level after the Kyoto Protocol was ratified but has been increasing after 2008. Thailand, Malaysia, and the Philippines have been maintaining their per capita emission across the years. However, the per capita emission of Cambodia and Thailand have been increasing over the years. Thailand’s per capita emission increase has been rather gradual, while Cambodia’s per capita emission increased drastically after 1997, coincidentally after the signing of the Kyoto Protocol.
The region shows huge variation when it comes to per capita emission from energy use. The per capita emission from energy use in Thailand and Malaysia has been increasing across the years, and both increased significantly after 1997. Laos, Myanmar, and Vietnam also witnessed some degree of increase in per capita emission. These trends suggest that the sustainability of energy consumption in the region may be overlooked. However, Brunei, Indonesia, and Singapore have shown downwards trends in their per capita emission from energy use, suggesting that the per capita emission from energy use could be decreased with suitable interventions.
Agriculture emissions are mainly from the production of agricultural goods, mainly from activities such as soil management, livestock management, crops production, decomposition, etc. The per capita emission from total agriculture activities has been quite stable for each country over the years. When we focus on the main staple of the region, rice, we see that the per capita emission from rice cultivation has been decreasing gradually in the region. Burning activities, on the other hand, observed a larger fluctuation in per capita emission. This is especially significant for countries like Cambodia, Laos, and Myanmar.
In a longer period, the region’s GHG emission per capita has been decreasing, signalling that Southeast Asia has been pushing towards lower GHG emission while increasing economic development.
[i] World Health Organization and United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, “Climate and Health Country Profile — 2015: Brunei Darussalam”, https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/254618/WHO-FWC-PHE-EPE-15.50-eng.pdf?sequence=1.
[ii] We do not have all the data from every country in the region, so this article is only generalizing based on the available data.
