Suchergebnisse

Decarbonisation is not happening in a vacuum but on a planet already replete with ecological challenges. The material-intensive requirement of low-carbon technologies means more mining, and the currently inadequate recycling capacity means more waste. Existing pressures point to an urgent need to reduce consumption to avert climate and ecological crises.

The COVID-19 pandemic has inflicted unprecedented economic damages across the globe. Amidst rigorous efforts to manage immediate issues like job losses and business displacements, low-carbon proponents have begun to make calls for a green recovery. In Southeast Asia, an intentional shift towards a green recovery seems unlikely. This is because governments fall back on existing development plans as the basis for economic recovery strategy. As green agenda has been weakly integrated in existing development plans, the progress of climate mitigation in Southeast Asia is likely to remain slow and mixed at best, with a possibility of it getting weakened because of a strong focus on the economy after the pandemic. This development thus highlights the continuing challenges in implementing green growth ideals as the main strategy in addressing climate change.

Decarbonisation through the deployment of low-carbon technologies has become a central component in climate mitigation strategy. The production of these technologies, however, requires many more minerals compared to their conventional counterparts. Moreover, the technologies needed to recycle them at the end of their product lifetime are not yet fully developed. These potentially intensify various environmental and social pressures on the Earth that has already been overstretched for half a century in meeting the world's consumption demand. Managing resource extraction through sustainable and ethical mining and accelerating technological innovations for recycling are important, but alternative pathways aimed at bringing down consumption levels, possibly through a transformation in the economic system, are likely to be necessary to restore a balance with nature and avert climate and ecological crises.

President Donald Trump has recently pulled the US out of the Paris Agreement on Climate Change at a time when climate impacts in the South China Sea have become visible. Strengthening existing regional mechanisms for marine protection is a pressing issue despite on-going territorial and jurisdictional disputes in the area.

Since Southeast Asian leaders signed the ASEAN Agreement on Disaster Management and Emergency Response (AADMER) in 2005, the region has prioritised developing national and regional disaster management capabilities to respond to disasters. However, the recent back-to-back disasters that occurred between July and August 2018 tested the response capacities of national governments and the humanitarian community. Parts of Myanmar, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and the Philippines battled floods of varying severity induced by seasonal monsoon rains, tropical storms and a dam collapse on a tributary of the Mekong River. Meanwhile, Indonesia's Lombok Island, West Nusa Tenggara was hit by multiple earthquakes and aftershocks between 29 July and 19 August. The ASEAN Coordinating Centre for Humanitarian Assistance on disaster management (AHA Centre) reported that at the peak of these disasters, over 588,000 people were displaced and more than 5.2 million people in Southeast Asia were affected.4 Against the backdrop recent disasters generating simultaneous responses, this NTS Insight makes key observations on Southeast Asia's ability to meet the immediate needs of disaster-affected communities while building greater disaster resilience for the future. It assesses the (i) institutionalisation of disaster management in ASEAN; (ii) localisation of disaster response; and (iii) opportunities for financial risk management for building disaster resilient communities.

This NTS Insight is the second part of a series of two that engages in the debate on the South China Sea (SCS) from the perspective of marine environment. In this NTS Insight, focal areas that are important for effective marine environmental protection (MEP) are identified, which include protection and conservation, legal frameworks, enforcement, and scientific research. An assessment of the status of national and regional MEP in the SCS is provided. MEP practices in other regions are examined to generate lessons for better cooperative protection in the SCS. Possible avenues are proposed for strengthening cooperation. This NTS Insight argues that MEP cooperation between ASEAN and China is critical since marine environmental problems are often transboundary and geopolitical tensions should not hinder cooperative efforts in order to advance marine environmental security.

The South China Sea (SCS) is an important body of water that affects a wide range of human security aspects, including economy, food, health and environment, of the countries and people around it. In view of the growing international will to protect the marine environment, it is timely to examine whether and how such commitment can be successfully translated into effective policies, actions, and cooperation in the SCS. This NTS Insight is the first part of a series of two that evaluates the current challenges in marine environmental protection in the SCS and explores opportunities for improvement. An analysis of why the environment in the SCS is a non-traditional security issue is presented. The examination of the causes behind environmental degradation in the SCS and the implications for the security of countries and people in the region leads us to conclude that the alarming state of the environment in the SCS points to the urgency for enhancing cooperation among concerned countries.