China's DeepSeek demonstrates that AI can be trained in a more efficient way and has enormous implications for Big Tech, which will be pressured to justify efforts to reduce climate impact.
The financing gap is huge, but time is short. Given the inadequacy of a promised new climate finance goal, Southeast Asia should look beyond UN-led conferences to crowd in other sources of capital to tackle the climate crisis.
Asean's growing carbon trading initiatives present vast opportunities for emissions reduction and economic growth, but equitable frameworks and robust regulations are critical to their success.
If policymakers and ESG proponents fail to ensure that the ESG agenda is equitable and credible – directly benefiting working class and rural communities – the credibility of ESG will deteriorate further.