Research Database

The members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) have made several attempts to adopt renewable energy targets given the economic, energy-related, environmental challenges faced by the governments, policy makers, and stakeholders. However, previous studies have focused limited attention on the role of renewable energy when testing the dynamic link between CO2 emissions, energy consumption and renewable energy consumption. As such, this study is conducted to test a common hypothesis regarding a long-run environmental Kuznets curve (EKC). The paper also investigates the causal link between carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, energy consumption, renewable energy, population growth, and economic growth for countries in the region. Using various time-series econometrics approaches, our analysis covers five ASEAN members (including Indonesia, Myanmar, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Thailand) for the 1971–2014 period where required data are available. Our results reveal no long-run relationship among the variables of interest in the Philippines and Thailand, but a relationship does exist in Indonesia, Myanmar, and Malaysia. The EKC hypothesis is observed in Myanmar but not in Indonesia and Malaysia. Also, Granger causality among these important variables varies considerably across the selected countries. No Granger causality among carbon emissions, energy consumption, and renewable energy consumption is reported in Malaysia, the Philippines, and Thailand. Indonesia experiences a unidirectional causal effect from economic growth to renewable energy consumption in both short and long run and from economic growth to CO2 emissions and energy consumption. Interestingly, only Myanmar has a unidirectional effect from GDP growth, energy consumption, and population to the adoption of renewable energy. Policy implications have emerged based on the findings achieved from this study for each country in the ASEAN region.

This paper intends to synthesis the status quo and projected energy situation for Vietnam, as one of the fastest growing energy economies among the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN). Focus is drawn towards the existing policy landscape's ability to foster low carbon development progression as an alternative to the existing fossil fuel driven economy, while also aligning with achievement of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for the nation. Effectiveness of Vietnam's policy portfolio for fostering low carbon development was informed via a systematic literature review and Multi Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA). This was founded upon six developed criteria, informed from the literature review. The results were presented and analyzed via chronological and hierarchical policy taxonomies. Findings indicate that to support a pathway towards low carbon development, policies need to include mechanisms that favor Renewable Energy technology and also foster the mobilization of private investment or international cooperation. The research also indicates a significant connection between clean energy sector progression and achievement of relevant SDGs. Such a correlation should heighten the priority of energy sector actions, such as policy mechanisms and outcomes, not only quantitative targets.

This work is proposed to examine the relationships between energy consumption, biodiversity, and economic growth for China and five countries in the Indochina Peninsula, which are Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, and Vietnam, who also belong to Lancang-Mekong Cooperation, for the time span from 1991 to 2014. For this purpose, this work adopted autoregressive distributed lag […]

In this paper, the linear and nonlinear effects of oil price on growth for Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)—3 net oil-exporting countries, namely Brunei, Malaysia and Vietnam, are investigated. The empirical analysis applies the augmented autoregressive distributed lag model (ARDL) bound test approach and the nonlinear autoregressive distributed lag model (NARDL) methodology over the period of 1979 to 2017. Evidence suggests that ignoring nonlinearities may lead to misleading results. Specifically, results reveal that the effect of oil price is asymmetric for the case of Brunei, while the effect oil price is deemed insignificant for the case of Malaysia and Vietnam, both linear and nonlinear model. Brunei’s high dependency on oil revenue makes it susceptible to negative oil price shock. This suggests that oil price still plays a significant role as the main driver of economic progress for Brunei.

This article examines the relationships between energy use, fossil fuel consumption, CO2 emissions, and economic growth in three developing countries in Southeast Asia between 1988 and 2017. We found that the GDP per capita positively affects per capita CO2 emissions, and that it has a positive relationship with per capita energy use. Additionally, we found that GDP per capita is negatively affected by fossil fuel consumption, whereas it is positively affected by per capita CO2 emissions. Moreover, results show directional relationships running from per capita CO2 emissions to GDP per capita, from GDP per capita to per capita energy use, from GDP per capita to fossil fuel consumption, and from GDP per capita to per capita CO2 emissions. We found cointegration among the variables at the 1% critical value and two levels of cointegration among variables at the 5% critical value. Finally, we recommend policies to boost economic growth, reduce CO2 emissions, and achieve sustainable development in Southeast Asia.

This paper presents a conceptual study of ASEAN countries, explore the possibility of developing carbon trading futures and options market from an economic perspective. Owing to market-based complementarity and an invisible hand in the economic market to influence the market and the difference in the development level of ASEAN countries, the joint planning of carbon trading mechanism (carbon trading emission rights mechanism) has become a great trend in the future. The ASEAN countries are currently at a stage of high industrial development; it also brings many pollution problems. How to maintain economic stability and even growth without prejudice to the environment is one aspect of the hard work of scholars studying environmental protection and economists jointly. This paper sets a framework for a carbon trading mechanism to study what impact it will have on the market economy and the environment. It is hoped that this creative idea will be realized and benefited mankind and nature in the future.

Urban heat island (UHI) can be described as characteristics of warmth for both the atmospheres and surfaces in cities compared to rural surroundings. The attention on UHI has helped to advance the development of urban cooling strategies in Singapore. However, these strategies are often implemented at different levels with different mechanisms, and studies on the environmental implications of these strategies are often segregated. Therefore, understanding on how the urban canopy works is vital to analyse the energy performance, because canopy modelling is significant in estimating urban weather conditions, which affects the heat gain intake for buildings. It is thus become imperative to develop an integrated model for accurate prediction of weather conditions at different scales. By utilizing the Virtual Singapore (VSg) database, this study explores the development an integrated simulation platform, named BESCAM, for climate assessment and district energy demand. It focuses on urban canopy modelling and building energy simulation. The approach is to use CityGML from VSg as input, which comprises converted Building Information Modelling (BIM) buildings. Then, an urban canopy modelling (UCM) is developed to assess the microclimate condition with urban morphology consideration. Afterwards, building energy simulation can be conducted consecutively using EnergyPlus by integrating microclimate and building information. Hence, the BESCAM platform would offer a unique opportunity to architects, engineers, and scientists to use the same source of information, using VSg database, for conducting their own analysis and compare their conclusions.

Understanding the dynamic nexus between CO2 emissions and economic growth in the sustainable environment helps the economies in developing resources and formulating apposite energy policies. In the recent past, various studies have explored the nexus between CO2 emissions and economic growth. This study, however, investigates the nexus between renewable energy production, CO2 emissions, and economic growth over the period from 1995 to 2016 for seven Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) countries. Fully Modified Ordinary Least Square (FMOLS) and Dynamic Ordinary Least Square (DOLS) methodologies were used to estimate the long- and short-run relationships. The panel results revealed that renewable energy production has a significant long term effect on CO2 emissions for Vietnam (t = −2.990), Thailand (t = −2.505), and Indonesia (t = −2.515), and economic growth impact for Malaysia (t = 2.050), Thailand (t = −2.001), and the Philippines (t = −2.710). It is, therefore, vital that the ASEAN countries implement policies and strategies that ensure energy saving and continuous economic growth without forsaking the environment. This study, as such, recommends that ASEAN countries should take measures to decrease the reliance on fossil fuels for achieving these objectives. Future research should consider the principles of circular economy and clean energy development mechanisms integrated with renewable energy technologies.

The government efforts to maintain national energy stability program through the increase energy supply and saving must be supported by all levels of society. Several energy observers and experts stated that the contribution of the domestic or household sector in the activities of energy saving program is quite significant because the percentage of household customers are relatively high. This paper analyzes the potential of providing research data on the percentage of electricity savings in the domestic or household sectors towards saving electricity nationally. The results of the study show that electrical devices commonly used in households still have the potential to be saved. Electrical devices that are often used at households and have great saving potentials are air conditioners and refrigerators. If each household customer saves 30% of electricity consumption, then the national electricity supply that can be saved will be around 5,679 GW, equivalent to 83.3 trillion rupiah. The saving program resulted in savings of electricity consumption of around 6% of all household consumers or around 2.9% of total national electricity consumption.