Research Database

Emerging countries in Southeast Asia are facing considerable challenges in addressing rising motorisation and its negative impact on air quality, traffic, energy security, liveability, and greenhouse gas emissions. This paper presents a comparative analysis of the approach and status of sustainable, low-carbon transport policy in ASEAN countries and identifies differences and similarities. The methodology is based on a taxonomy of policy components as developed by Howlett and Cashore. The data come from comprehensive country studies for Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam and interviews with policymakers. We find that each country has a specific set of goals, objectives and targets that support sustainable transport, and, directly or indirectly, climate change mitigation. In terms of specific mechanisms and calibrations, which we analyse based on the Avoid−Shift−Improve approach, there are notable differences between the countries, for example in terms of fuel economy policy. Even though an initial response to climate change mitigation challenges is visible in these countries’ transport policies, much more effort is required to enable a transition to a transport system compatible with long-term climate change and sustainable development targets.

This study examines whether policies to promote renewable electricity generation are likely to be effective by applying panel unit root and stationarity tests to time series data on renewable electricity generation for 115 countries over the period 1980-2008. We find that for the panel as a whole, and almost three quarters of the individual countries, renewable electricity generation is characterized by a unit root. This result implies that policies to promote renewable electricity generation, such as renewable portfolio standards, which result in annual increases in renewable energy and, as such, which represent permanent positive shocks to the long-run growth path of renewable electricity generation, will be more effective in increasing renewable electricity generation than policies with a pre-specified time horizon.