SE Asia urged to speed up clean energy transition

Southeast Asian countries will need to accelerate their transition to clean energy to limit their dependence on imported fuel and rein in inflationary pressures, analysts said.

Geopolitical tensions such as the Ukraine crisis and the Middle East crisis have disrupted the supply of fossil fuels and caused a spike in prices in the past few months. This has raised consumer prices among net oil and gas importers like the member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. ASEAN imports at least 50 percent of its crude oil requirements from the Middle East.

Putra Adhiguna, the Jakarta-based managing director of the independent think tank Energy Shift Institute, said the geopolitical tensions that are rattling oil prices are "just another reminder" for ASEAN to speed up its shift to renewable energy.