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Southeast Asia can still meet the Paris Agreement\u2019s most ambitious climate goal\u2014but only if governments accept higher energy costs, the CEO of one of the Philippines\u2019 biggest infrastructure developers said on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
\u201cI do think it\u2019s feasible, but I think it will require sacrificing cost to achieve the objective,\u201d said Guillaume Lucci, president and CEO of Prime Infrastructure Capital, onstage at Fortune\u2019s Southeast Asia 500 Summit in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThat will be a very difficult decision for a lot of the governments in our region to decide if we drive cost up and decarbonize, or maybe not so, and rethink some of these targets,\u201d Lucci added, calling himself \u201ca bit of a pessimist\u201d on the question of whether the region can power an AI-era growth spurt without breaking its decarbonization targets.<\/p>\n
Under the Paris Agreement, countries committed to holding the rise in global average temperature to well below 2\u00b0C above preindustrial levels and pursuing efforts to limit it to 1.5\u00b0C.<\/p>\n
The Philippines, where Prime Infrastructure Capital is based, imports 98% of its oil from the Middle East. The Southeast Asian country declared a nationwide energy emergency in March, sending local fuel prices soaring.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The country\u2019s grid is not ready for the energy transition, either. \u201cWe have fairly poor grids [and] certainly not grids that are capable of receiving an abundance of variable energy,\u201d Lucci said. \u201cWe\u2019re building 2,000 megawatts of pumped hydro right now that will help stabilize the grid in the Philippines.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lucci\u2019s caution is rooted in the Philippines, which imports 98% of its oil from the Gulf and declared a nationwide energy emergency in March after the Iran war broke out in February, sending local fuel prices soaring.<\/p>\n
Kim-See Lim, chief investment officer of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), struck a more optimistic note, pointing to the region\u2019s young, tech-savvy population and its rapid growth over the past two decades.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s been the fastest-growing region in the last two decades, projected to continue on that trajectory,\u201d Lim said during the panel. She added that Southeast Asia will need to transition because the effects of climate change are \u201cfelt quite severely\u201d in the region.<\/p>\n
About 25% of the world\u2019s seaborne oil trade went through the Strait of Hormuz in 2025, and an estimated 80% of the oil and oil products passing through the strait were destined for Asia, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA). \u201cThe LNG prices are still double of where it used to be before the Middle East issue, and oil prices are close to double as well,\u201d Lim noted, citing the energy shock that followed the war.<\/p>\n
Asked about the region\u2019s energy investment gap, Lim said the main obstacle was not capital but a shortage of investor confidence in projects. Companies still expect a minimum return in emerging markets, she said, while perceived risk remains \u201ctoo high.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cClearly, capital is not lacking,\u201d she said. \u201cWhat\u2019s lacking really is the confidence, right? And that\u2019s bankable projects.\u201d<\/p>\n
The IEA projects Southeast Asia\u2019s electricity demand will rise by a further 5.4% annually between 2026 and 2030.<\/p>\n
The disruption matters sharply for Asia. About 25% of the world\u2019s seaborne oil trade went through the Strait of Hormuz in 2025, and options for oil flows to bypass Hormuz are limited, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA). An estimated 80% of oil and oil products that went through the Strait of Hormuz were destined for Asia.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Southeast Asia\u2019s next growth cycle will depend on access to secure, affordable, and reliable energy. The IEA reports that regional electricity demand is projected to rise by a further 5.4% annually during 2026 to 2030.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Data centers are putting pressure on energy systems. Global electricity consumption from data centers reached an estimated 415 terawatt hours in 2024\u2014about 1.5% of global electricity consumption\u2014and the IEA says AI is accelerating deployment of high-performance servers, driving up power density in data centers.<\/p>\n
\u201cMany of the data centers have to move far from the community to the energy park,\u201d said Xingjian Pang, Schneider Electric\u2019s East Asia president. Locating facilities near communities could provoke protests over their electricity and water use, he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
#Prime #Infras #CEO #Paris #1.5degree #goal #feasible #Southeast #Asia<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Southeast Asia can still meet the Paris Agreement\u2019s most ambitious climate goal\u2014but only if governments…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[245],"tags":[24153,2334,585,2255,4846,6035,24152,6039,2498,7590,22455],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19799"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19799"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19799\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19799"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19799"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19799"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}