Never mind the US election - for Asia, it's more significant that Japan, South Korea and China are going carbon neutral
In late October, while many of us in Asia were doomscrolling on Twitter and glued to cable news as we counted down to the elections in the United States, something happened that arguably bore more significance to the region.
Japan and South Korea, two of Asia's most industrialised economies, in quick succession pledged to make their countries carbon neutral by 2050.
Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga, in his maiden speech to the legislature, said the country needed to adopt a "shift in thinking" to view climate action as pro-growth, while President Moon Jae-in of South Korea promised the new focus would generate new markets, industries and jobs.
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Their statements came a month after China's President Xi Jinping made waves at the United Nations General Assembly with his pledge to bring Asia's biggest economy to a zero net emissions state by 2060.
US President-elect Joe Biden is also expected to put his country on a path towards zero net emissions in 2050, reversing the climate denialism of the defeated incumbent, Donald Trump.
Yoshihide Suga, Japan's prime minister, set an ambitious target for his country to become carbon neutral by 2050 in his first policy speech to parliament. Photo: Bloomberg alt=Yoshihide Suga, Japan's prime minister, set an ambitious target for his country to become carbon neutral by 2050 in his first policy speech to parliament. Photo: Bloomberg
All in all, as former Australian prime minister Kevin Rudd noted in a recent commentary, we are looking at a state of play in which nearly 60 per cent of the world's carbon emissions are from nations committed to net zero emissions.
These pledges, to me, will in time to come be remembered as among the silver linings in a year when we had to endure the crisis of a generation brought on by the Covid-19 pandemic.
They represent not just a tangible goal for the rest of the international community, but the new global zeitgeist - where, to paraphrase Singapore's Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, everything else "bends at the knee" of climate-change action.
As we bid goodbye to four years of climate-change quackery by the Trump administration, we in Asia must take stock of our own actions and choices in this regard.
Among the hard questions that must be asked is how fast we will move to phase out coal-fired power. Five of the 15 countries most affected by climate change are in Southeast Asia, according to one index.
Beyond the Paris Agreement, what do countries in the region - and the Asean bloc - plan to do in the long term? Will they commit to net zero emissions in 2050 as well? As for the economic behemoths that have made 2050 pledges, will they be revising their Paris Agreement pledges?
Let's hope some of these questions are answered by this time next year, when world leaders convene for the United Nations Climate Change Conference, or COP26, in Glasgow.
This article originally appeared on the South China Morning Post (SCMP).
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