Anti-renewables rhetoric? Decoding the playbook for slowing Asia’s energy transition

A sharp Washington policy pivot has torpedoed wind and solar projects in the United States after the re-election of Donald Trump, a climate denier who has repeatedly attacked the economic and environmental credentials of renewable energy technologies. 

Trump’s renewables denial has caused ripples beyond the United States. In Asia Pacific, where fossil fuels command a greater share of the energy mix than anywhere on the planet, there are signs that political and business leaders feel entitled to de-prioritise the energy transition.

Indonesia, for example, looks set to backtrack from commitments it made at COP29 in November. President Prabowo Subianto had promised to add 75 gigawatts (GW) of renewable energy and shut down all of its coal power plants by 2040. But the country’s climate and energy envoy has described a complete coal exit as “economic suicide”. A think tank pointed out last week that Indonesia’s renewables additions will need to be ramped up to realise Prabowo’s ambitions. 

Asia’s addiction to fossil fuels owes much to a narrative that portrays coal, oil and natural gas as essential for economic stability and poverty alleviation, and clean energy technologies as in some way ineffective, uneconomic or harmful to society – propagated by those who seek to maintain the status quo.

Though the growth of renewables has been brisk in some jurisdictions – nowhere faster than China, where the emissions of the world’s biggest polluter have flattened even though the country continues to add coal capacity – in others like Indonesia, the messaging on the energy transition has been muddled.

In Vietnam, once the darling of Southeast Asia’s clean energy growth story and an offshore wind trailblazer, activists have been jailed for campaigning against coal and agitating for clean power. Malaysia has solid renewable energy ambitions, and is creeping towards a 40 per cent renewables by 2035 target, but the world’s third-largest manufacturer of solar panels remains heavily reliant on coal and gas.

Singapore has enjoyed stellar publicity for being the first Asean nation to introduce a carbon tax and taking the lead on cross-border renewables trading and the carbon markets, but a tax rebate for big polluters has raised questions about the city-state’s sincerity in meeting its climate ambitions at the required speed.

As pressure builds on Asian nations to set more ambitious climate targets in the run-up to COP30, Eco-Business casts a cautious eye over the statements politicians and business leaders have been making to downplay renewables. Some are grounded in some truth. Others make compelling arguments for a cautious shift away from fossil fuels. But all serve to delay the transition to clean energy in the world’s most climate-vulnerable region.

‘Asia is different’ 

‘Renewables destabilise the grid’

Ex-AboitizPower CEO Emmanuel Rubio said that the intermittent nature of renewables justifies the need for “a diverse energy mix that provides reliable and dispatchable power”. Image: Power Philippines

When he declared a national energy emergency on his first day in office, Trump said in a statement that the Biden administration’s policies – which saw renewables take a record share of the electricity mix in 2022 – have led to “an inadequate and intermittent energy supply” and “an increasingly unreliable grid”. Trump, who has decried wind farms as ugly, expensive and a danger to wildlife before suspending offshore wind leases on 20 January, has been taking aim at the fitful nature of wind and solar.

Unpredictable fluctuations in power from renewables can destabilise the electricity grid, a point that is often raised by policymakers to justify a slow transition. Conservative politicians in Australia continue to decry the intermittency of renewables as a threat to energy stability, even though the country’s energy authority said in August that the grid will remain stable as it shifts from coal domination to running mainly on renewables, as long as new additions are delivered “on time and in full”.

Rachmat Kaimuddin, chair of the national energy transition taskforce of Indonesia, a country which uses less than one per cent of its solar potential, said at an event in Jakarta last year that a reliable transmission system that can cope with the intermittency of renewables is the “bottom line” for Indonesia’s energy transition. Renewables comprise just 13 per cent of the country’s coal-heavy energy mix.

Christophe Inglin, who has worked in the solar business since the 1990s and runs Singapore-based firm Energetix, told Eco-Business that renewables capacity in Indonesia is currently nowhere near the levels at which intermittency can destabilise the grid. “Intermittency is indeed a challenge when renewables penetration is high enough, such as in Germany where renewables can result in negative power pricing. So storage technologies must come to the rescue,” he said.

Corporates like Philippine conglomerate Aboitiz have also flagged the “constraints” of renewables. The former head of the company’s power subsidiary Emmanuel Rubio bemoaned the “variability” of wind and solar in a speech last May and urged industry not to rely on it. AboitizPower plans to grow its total production capacity to 13 GW in the next six years, with half to come from fossil fuels, the other half from renewables. “This is why they are promoting the idea that renewable energy needs to be complemented with new baseload energy capacity from fossil gas and nuclear,” Greenpeace Philippines climate and energy campaigner Khevin Yu told Eco-Business.

Petronas has also telegraphed the intermittency of renewables as a “stumbling block” for the energy transition. Its CEO Tengku Muhammad Taufik said at an event last year that their unreliability fuels the perception that renewables are not profitable.

Meanwhile, new evidence is emerging that counters such claims. California was powered by 100-per-cent renewable energy with no blackouts for a record length of time in 2024, according to a February study. This was partly thanks to backup battery power. At their peak, renewables provided 162 per cent of the grid’s needs, enabling extra supply to be piped into neighbouring states.

“This study really finds that we can keep the grid stable with more and more renewables,” said Mark Jacobson, a civil and environmental engineer at Stanford University and lead author of the paper.

‘Energy security trumps energy transition’

Geopolitical tension has given fossil fuels companies an excuse to deprioritise the energy transition. Petronas chief executive Tengku Muhammad Taufik has said that while companies were focused on the shift away from traditional fuels toward clean energy before the Ukraine war, energy security is now top priority.

“With so much gas being removed from the system, not being available to Europe, so [many] barrels now making its way through different routes — the challenge of ensuring energy security has now taken its position again,” he said after the West slapped sanctions on Russian gas. 

‘Our country has a small carbon footprint’

Singapore and Malaysia often argue that as small countries, they do not contribute much to climate change – a stance that deflects from the responsibility to cut emissions.

“As a developing nation, Malaysia has limited responsibility for global climate change and more limited capabilities than developed countries,” the Khazanah Research Institute said in its report What is to be done? Confronting climate crisis in Malaysia. True, Malaysia only contributes 0.77 per cent of the world’s total emissions. But its per capita emissions are on par with Japan and China. Singapore’s national emissions are 0.11 per cent of global climate pollution. But its emissions per person are the highest in the world.

Indonesia and India have also argued that they do not pollute much per person compared to developed countries. While this is true – the average American has six times the carbon footprint of the average Indonesian, and eight times that of the average Indian – and developing countries are entitled to more climate finance than they have been receiving from rich nations through climate agreements such as COP, a slow transition to clean energy does not benefit any country in a climate-vulnerable region such as Asia, where climate impacts are rapidly worsening. 

‘Too small for solar’

Singapore’s small size is routinely used to explain away the tiny contribution renewable energy makes to powering the country – the city-state is too space-scarce for solar, its most promising renewables option, which makes up around one per cent of an electricity mix dominated by fossil gas. While land scarcity is a genuine constraint, as it is in any densely populated city, solar capacity in Singapore grew by 46 per cent between 2022 and 2023, which suggests that solar’s potential has been under-exploited despite its small size. 

Land scarcity is also cited as a barrier to solar adoption in South Korea, a country 130 times the size of Singapore. However, if policies and regulatory improvements were implemented, Korea’s solar potential could exceed the current national electricity consumption, suggested Yi Hyun Kim, a campaigner for Seoul-based non-profit Solutions for our Climate.

“With technological advancements, this potential could further increase, making solar energy a viable solution for growing electricity demand,” she told Eco-Business.

‘Too cloudy for solar’

Commentaries on the slow uptake of solar in Singapore have noted that the city-state, like its tropical Southeast Asian neighbours, has high cloud cover, which diminishes its solar potential. While it is true that clouds veil the sun, particularly during the rainy season, intermittent cloud cover is not a compelling reason to delay deploying solar at scale, said experts.

Solar irradiation in Singapore is 50 per cent higher than in northern Europe, where solar photovoltaic has been rapidly deployed in recent years. Solar now accounts for 12 per cent of Germany’s electricity mix – up from just 2 per cent in 2010.

‘Renewables are unaffordable’

Malaysian premier Anwar Ibrahim has said that lowering emissions should not come at the expense of economic growth. Malaysia could lose up to 30 per cent of GDP by 2070 to climate change. Image: Anwar on Instagram

In 2023, Malaysia’s prime minister Anwar Ibrahim said in a speech at Energy Asia, a conference hosted by oil giant Petronas, that lowering emissions should not come at the expense of economic growth or compromise policies that ease poverty. “While some countries are preparing to transition to cleaner forms of energy, others are still struggling with access to complete electrification, clean cooking oil and energy security,” said Anwar at the event.

“Affordability remains a key concern, particularly for parts of developing Asia where people are not looking too far into the future but might simply be struggling to pay the bill for the next week and to put food on the table,” he added. 

Anwar also said that the energy transition should not hamper policies that support quality education, health and basic infrastructure. “The need to change, yes, the need for transition, of course, but also the need to survive,” he said.

In the same speech, Anwar referenced a conversation he’d had with a group that included Amin H. Nasser, the chief executive of oil giant Aramco, who in a speech at Singapore International Energy Week in October 2024 said that developing Asia could not afford renewable energy – and should invest in improving oil and gas infrastructure instead. 

The “‘Renewables’ will cost the Earth” campaign is linked to conservative political lobby group Advance Australia. Image: BlueSky

The supposedly high cost of renewable energy is also used in developed countries in the region. In January, a billboard that reads “‘Renewables’ will cost you the Earth” emerged in Sydney and Melbourne. The campaign was backed by Advance Australia, a conservative lobby group linked to fossil fuels interests that has called climate change a “hoax”. Ironically, some of the billboards the campaign ran on are powered by solar energy. 

While the cost of every major source of renewable energy is now lower than the average cost of fossil fuels, and is cheaper in most coal-dominant countries, the cost of climate disasters is rising – and nowhere is the cost of climate-related damage as high as in Asia.

According to Asian Development Bank, climate inaction – that is, an ongoing dependence on fossil fuels – will cost Asia 17 per cent of regional GDP by 2070. Climate-vulnerable countries such as the Philippines, Indonesia, and Malaysia could potentially lose up to 30 per cent of their GDP under a high emissions scenario.

‘Asian concerns should not be influenced by the West’

In his speech “Charting pathways for a sustainable Asia” at Energy Week, Malaysian premier Anwar Ibrahim suggested that the need to transition to clean energy was a mandate from the West rather than a plea from scientists to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and avoid catastrophic climate change. 

“The [energy] transition must be determined by all and subjected to the rigours of the industry requirements of each country. It must not be dictated by any group of countries,” he said. He cited a suggestion from Amin Nasser of Aramco that Asia must “take a more proactive and inclusive position to allow for voices of conscience in Asia.”

‘Renewables kill wildlife and ruin rural communities’

In 2022, Australia’s administration led by prime minister Anthony Albanese announced that it would deliver 82 per cent of the country’s electricity from renewable sources. Since then, right-wing political groups with ties to fossil fuels interests have attacked renewables projects on the premise that they harm farmlands, wildlife and the rural way of life. 

The website for the “Let’s rethink renewables” campaign, which claims renewables projects will harm wildlife and rural communities. Image: Let’s Rethink Renewables

The “Let’s rethink renewables” campaign calls on citizens to oppose wind, solar and pumped hydropower projects in the Gympie region in Queensland by writing to politicians, mobilising on social media and joining protests. The campaign, which calls for a reassessment of Australia’s climate policy, claims that renewables will destroy pristine wildlife habitats and kill rare and threatened native plants and animals. Though it is presented as a grassroots initiative fronted by concerned rural communities, questions have been raised over the group’s ties to fossil fuels lobbyists.

A man stands next to a billboard opposing wind farms in Port Stephens, New South Wales. Image: Mark Watson

Trump’s baseless claim that wind farms harm whales inspired campaigns that oppose the Australian government’s plan to install offshore windfarms. A fake article shared on social media in 2023 claimed offshore wind projects in the Illawarra and Hunter would kill 400 whales a year. The article was debunked by Quentin Hanich, the editor-in-chief of the academic journal Marine Policy. “There’s been a whole bunch of continuing dialogue that suggests that windfarms kill whales without any actual evidence to demonstrate that that’s the case,” Hanich told The Guardian.

Material used in scores of social media groups that popped up to oppose the wind farms last year – for instance, images of beached whales with wind turbines in the background – were linked to anti-wind activists backed by fossil fuels industries in the US.

The National Rally Against Reckless Renewables campaign claimed last year that the Borumba pumped hydro scheme in Queensland would drive the critically endangered Nangur spiny skink to extinction. The campaign was backed by conservative politicians, including the leader of the Nationals party, David Littleproud, who said “renewables are losing their social licence because they are destroying the very thing they were designed to protect.”

Poorly planned renewables projects can harm nature. The Great Indian bustard, an ostrich-like bird, is in danger of extinction due to collisions with clean energy infrastructure in northwestern India, and activists in the Philippines are up in arms over the construction of a wind farm in the biodiverse Masungi nature reserve. However, a study from 2009 found that fossil fuel plants are 17 times more deadly for birds and bats than wind farms. Also, sensitivity mapping tools like Avistep help developers plan clean energy projects in ways that avoid harming biodiversity. Developed by non-profit BirdLife International, the tool is being trialled in countries including India, Vietnam, Nepal and Thailand. 

‘Nuclear is cheaper and more reliable’

In Australia, which has some of the highest solar and wind energy potential on the planet, politicians opposed to a rapid shift away from fossil fuels argue that nuclear is a better alternative to renewables. “The federal opposition claims nuclear is cheaper and more reliable than renewables.

It’s a crafty and seriously cynical political ploy,” said Belinda Noble, founder of Comms Declare, a non-profit that campaigns for a ban on fossil fuel advertising. Nationals leader David Littleproud has proposed an energy plan that backs nuclear and fossil gas, and limits investment in renewables. This would enable coal-fired power stations to keep running for a lot longer, which Littleproud argues will save money.

‘Technology neutral’

When the Philippines government launched its energy plan for 2023-2050 and an intention to provide “reliable, clean, and resilient energy” for all Filipinos, it announced its ambition for renewables to make up more than half of the energy mix by 2050. But it left the door open for the addition of more fossil fuels and nuclear too. It used the phrase “technology neutral” to frame the narrative that it would cater to to all forms of energy as a strategy to address the energy crisis and goal for energy independence for the country.

‘Energy efficiency must come first’

Prioritising improving the efficiency of fossil energy infrastructure over switching to renewables is a compelling delay tactic, since more efficient energy systems are more affordable and less polluting. “Renewable energy is only the second step in reducing emissions. Energy efficiency measures must come first and foremost,” Yin Shao Loong, deputy director of research at Malaysian research firm Khazanah Research Institute told The Edge, a business news site.

While it is true that energy efficiency is the quickest and cheapest way to cut emissions – the International Energy Agency (IEA) estimates that energy efficiency could account for nearly half of the emissions cuts needed between now and 2030 to reach net zero by 2050 – measures taken to reduce energy waste should be done as well as not instead of investing in renewables.

“Pursuing energy efficiency alongside clean energy will double the pace of progress and keep delivering climate goals that are affordable and within reach,” says said Jon Creyts, chief executive of US think tank Rocky Mountain Institute.

‘There is no market’

An argument often made in Indonesia, where renewable energy resources are grossly underexploited, is that there are insufficient opportunities for clean energy players – so don’t bother. “Indonesia is blessed with huge renewables potential, but there’s no market for it yet,” said Eka Satria, chief executive of energy and mining firm Medco Power at an event in Jakarta last year.

While there are obstacles to building a renewables business in Indonesia – among them, fossil fuels subsidies, a monopolistic energy market structure, and ever-evolving regulations that put off investors – there is arguably no country in Southeast Asia where the renewables opportunity is greater – and needed more. Indonesia invested more in renewables than any country in Asean in 2023, according to management consultancy Bain. 

While efforts to slow the shift to renewable energy will likely continue this year, the United Nations executive climate secretary Simon Stiell asserted last week that the renewables shift is “unstoppable” – and in every nation’s self-interest. “When US$2 trillion flows into clean energy and infrastructure in just one year, as they did last year, you can be sure it’s not because of virtue signalling. That’s twice as much as in fossil fuels. Investors know that clean energy makes far more sense. The money-making opportunity is simply too big to ignore,” he said.