If regional integration is the least-cost route to the energy system every ASEAN member state wants, why does national planning remain the default, and which institutional and financing arrangements would change that?
A regional energy system and healthy natural systems are both within reach and closer than they have ever been for ASEAN. The energy system has political commitment in the Enhanced ASEAN Power Grid MoU, and for the first time a least-cost optimisation of the whole system, coming in the 9th ASEAN Energy Outlook. Nature finance has a decade of instruments and practitioner experience behind it.
To-date, financing still begins with individual assets, requiring sponsors, costs and returns, not with the region's objective for energy or oceans. In energy, projects are evaluated and financed project-by-project, rather than considering how an integrated system would increase value and lower costs for all countries, though requiring a different approach to financing. In ocean finance, distinct projects - fisheries, mangroves, coastal protection, ports - have often been clustered under one heading of 'ocean finance,' despite their very different financing logics and mechanisms. The main constraint now for ASEAN is starting from the overarching objective: an optimized decarbonized energy system, ocean protection and resilience, and a robust and sustainable blue economy, and working out what has to be financed to deliver it. This lab starts from that perspective. Participants will discuss the region's needs and current financing landscape, and what it would take to close the gap.
