In response to the global net zero trend, governments in Northeast and Southeast Asia have announced policy plans, covering carbon taxes, carbon trading, as well as mandatory and voluntary markets. While everything seems in the progress, the Renewable Energy Markets (REM) Asia 2023 conference held in Singapore on April 27-28 provided a different perspective.
The conference focused on the development of renewable energy market in Asia, attended by participants from China, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Vietnam, Malaysia, and Indonesia, allowing a better understanding of the current status of policy implementation in Asian countries. In general, there are two major issues of concern for Asia's carbon markets:
Low carbon prices and slow implementation of carbon taxes
As the implementation deadlines for the U.S. carbon tariff and the EU's Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) approach, governments are introducing carbon trading schemes or carbon taxes to prevent capital outflows to other countries. While the operating systems are different, both carbon trading and carbon taxes set a price for carbon to align with the international market. Especially in Northeast Asia and Southeast Asian countries, which are major exporters o