Southeast Asia and the Economics of Global Climate Stabilization

Southeast Asia is vulnerable to climate change, yet is also on a carbon intensive development trajectory.The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has analyzed the potential role the region can play in climate change mitigation, focusing on the five countries of Southeast Asia that collectively account for 90% of regional greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions—Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, and Viet Nam.The study uses global economic models to examine scenarios of regulating GHG emissions through 2050. Within the scenarios, the cost of climate change inaction, changes that achieve mitigation, costs of climate action, co-benefits of mitigation responses, and benefits of avoided climate change are assessed.