Carbon Markets: An ASEAN Outlook
CLIMATE CHANGE IN SOUTHEAST ASIA PROGRAMME SEMINAR
About the Seminar
Carbon markets are relatively new to the ASEAN region. With vast peatlands and tropical forests that hold potential as carbon sinks and with its immense potential for renewable energy, ASEAN countries can generate quality carbon credits to help overcome financial limitations and take greater advantage of their potential to reduce emissions through projects such as ecosystem preservation and renewable energy deployment in rural communities. Almost all Southeast Asian countries have participated in existing carbon crediting mechanisms such as the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). Some countries, like Thailand and Vietnam, have plans to establish domestic emissions trading markets. Singapore has established a global voluntary exchange called Climate Impact X to facilitate the exchange of quality carbon credits.
In 2021, Parties to the Paris Agreement reached a landmark deal on Article 6, which addresses international cooperation on carbon markets. Its rules and implementation will allow countries to use a variety of carbon crediting mechanisms to meet the emissions reduction targets set out in their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) under the Paris Agreement. All ASEAN countries have indicated an intention to utilise market mechanisms to help them achieve NDC targets. The resulting international carbon market will boost demand for carbon credits and could save billions of dollars while ramping up climate ambition.
This is the second session in a series that seeks to answer key questions faced by the region at this turning point in the carbon market landscape. It will explore insights from regional researchers on the progress and challenges of carbon markets and nature-based solutions in ASEAN.
About the Speakers
Dr Raúl C. Rosales is a Senior Executive Fellow in the Centre for Climate Finance & Investment at Imperial College Business School in London. He serves on Imperial’s Singapore Green Finance Centre executive committee and leads the hydrogen hub (“h2 enable & accelerator”) at Imperial College. He is the lead author of the COP26 Green Finance Report on Voluntary Carbon Markets in ASEAN, and his interest on research is in the space of carbon finance markets, net-zero engineering and funds mobilization. He is also Senior Advisor to Orchard Global Asset Management. Raúl has 20+ years of experience in banking and multilateral development banks, focusing on capital management solutions and private debt. Previously, he was Senior Banker for Energy at EBRD; and Senior Advisor to the Chairman and Global Head MDBS at BBVA. Raúl holds a PhD (2013) in Civil Engineering from Universidad Politécnica Madrid.
Melissa Low is a Research Fellow at the National University of Singapore’s (NUS) Centre for Nature-based Climate Solutions. She previously worked at the Energy Studies Institute, NUS where she carried out research projects on a range of energy and climate issues of concern to Singapore and the region. She has participated in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Conference of Parties (COP) for over a decade and is an active sustainability thought leader, authoring, publishing and presenting at various forums. She is the Designated Contact Point for NUS’s accreditation to the UNFCCC and serves on the nine-member Steering Committee of the Research and Independent Non-Governmental Organisation (RINGO) Constituency under the UNFCCC. She is also is a Member of the International Civil Aviation Organisation’s Committee on Aviation Environmental Protection (CAEP) Long Term Aspirational Goal Task Group (LTAG-TG). Melissa holds an LLM in Climate Change Law and Policy (with distinction) from the University of Strathclyde, MSc in Environmental Management and BSocSci (Hons) in Geography from NUS. For her Master’s thesis on past and contemporary proposals on equity and differentiation in shaping the 2015 climate agreement, Melissa was awarded the Shell Best Dissertation Award 2013. She is currently pursuing a PhD part-time at the NUS Department of Geography.
Registration
This is a hybrid event which will be held at ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute (ISEAS).
Attending the Event In-person at ISEAS
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Attending the Event Virtually via Webinar
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