Indonesia’s decision to move its capital from Jakarta raises several key questions for Southeast Asia’s largest economy.Faced with notorious traffic jams, rapid sinking and a host of other problems, Indonesia’s President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo last week officially announced plans to shift ASEAN’s most populous capital to Kalimantan – an area on Borneo, an island which Indonesia shares with Malaysia and Brunei.With Indonesia located in the Ring of Fire, Kalimantan was identified as a possible lo

Singapore needs at least US$72 billion to build defences against rising sea levels, its leader said Sunday as the low-lying city-state gears up against the impact of climate changePrime Minister Lee Hsien Loong described climate change as "one of the gravest challenges facing humankind" and said the Southeast Asian country is already feeling the impact through a hotter weather and heavier rainstorms.He devoted a large portion of a major policy speech late Sunday – which included ini

Time is running out for Jakarta. One of the fastest-sinking cities on earth, environmental experts warn that one third of it could be submerged by 2050 if current rates continue.Decades of uncontrolled and excessive depletion of groundwater reserves, rising sea-levels, and increasingly volatile weather patterns mean swathes of it have already started to disappear.Existing environmental measures have had little impact, so authorities are taking drastic action: the nation will have a n

By 29 July, according to the sustainability organisation Global Footprint Network, humanity will have used up the Earth’s resource budget for the entire year. This “Earth Overshoot Day” has moved forward by an astonishing two months in the past 20 years and in 2019 it will arrive earlier than ever. Although humanity’s increasing environmental impact manifests itself in many ways, climate change has the broadest and longest-lasting effects.

The recent nomination of five protected areas to join the ASEAN Heritage Parks network marks another milestone in the region’s efforts to conserve its rich but highly threatened biodiversity – and sheds more light on this valuable network of nature reserves and marine parks.Managed by the ASEAN Centre for Biodiversity (ACB), ASEAN Heritage Parks are defined as “protected areas of high conservation importance which preserve complete spectrums of representative ecosystems of the ASEAN region.”A

As two of the most successful regional blocs in the world, the European Union (EU) and ASEAN have been cooperating across a wide range of sectors since formalising dialogue relations more than 40 years ago.While trade and investment were the traditional pillars of this relationship, the two bodies have been working together in fields such as science, technology and energy as far back as 1980 when a joint committee established a programme of cooperation.

From infrastructure damage caused by extreme weather events to drought-induced food insecurity, there are many climate risks for which the world should urgently be preparing. But one of the areas where climate change poses arguably the most significant risk is barely being discussed: human health.When natural disasters strike, the death toll from floods, famines, or building collapses is often just the beginning; the sickness and disease that follow sometimes do far more damage.

Commercial fleets and two-wheeled vehicles are expected to be the biggest drivers of growth in ASEAN’s electric vehicle (EV) market.A recent report by consultants Bain & Company estimates that the region’s annual new investment in passenger EVs will grow to US$6 billion by 2030, and will require another US$500 million in new charging infrastructure as service providers support electrification needs. Combined with the billions more ASEAN will have to invest in EV-related telec

Residents of Indonesia's capital on Thursday filed a lawsuit against the government over the toxic levels of air pollution that regularly blanket the city.Jakarta has been shrouded in hazardous smog for much of the past month, with air quality readings recording high concentrations of harmful microscopic particles known as PM2.5.Fed up with what they say is worsening air pollution, a group of 31 concerned residents has sued President Joko Widodo, as well as the ministry of environment an

World leaders gathered in Japan Friday for one of the most high-stakes and fractious Group of Twenty (G20) meetings in years, with a bruising United States (US)-China trade war, geopolitical tensions, and climate change on the agenda.The two-day summit in the city of Osaka will be dominated by trade issues, with all eyes on whether US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping can reach a truce in a dispute that has been hugely damaging for the world economy.But world leaders wil