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This policy brief by Ember examines the financing landscape for ASEAN's energy transition, highlighting a significant investment gap and the varying roles of bilateral partners like China, Japan, and the United States. It argues that the Philippines' 2026 ASEAN Chairmanship provides a strategic opportunity to coordinate regional industrial strategies—such as Indonesia's nickel downstreaming and Viet Nam's solar manufacturing—to move the region up the clean energy value chain.

The report 'The EV leapfrog' by Ember analyzes global electric vehicle (EV) trends in 2025, highlighting how emerging markets in Southeast Asia and Latin America are rapidly increasing EV adoption and overtaking advanced economies like the US and Japan in sales shares.

This report analyzes the integration of methane abatement in sustainable finance taxonomies, focusing on Colombia, the EU, Indonesia, South Africa, and Thailand. It finds that current frameworks suffer from incomplete sectoral coverage, a preference for usability over technical rigor, and a lack of specific performance metrics. To address these gaps, the report provides a benchmark of abatement activities and a comprehensive set of best-practice measures—including specific GHG thresholds and LDAR requirements—to help taxonomy developers mobilize the estimated USD 48 billion annual investment needed for methane mitigation by 2030.

This executive summary, published in December 2025 by the Climate Bonds Initiative and Climate Policy Initiative, provides a framework of best-practice measures for incorporating methane abatement into sustainable finance taxonomies. It identifies specific technical and performance criteria across four high-potential sectors—energy, agriculture, solid waste, and wastewater—to help policymakers and investors direct capital toward cost-effective methane mitigation.

This report by the Climate Policy Initiative and Climate Bonds Initiative analyzes the integration of methane abatement within five sustainable finance taxonomies (Colombia, EU, Indonesia, South Africa, and Thailand). It identifies systemic gaps in sectoral coverage, technical rigor, and criteria specificity, and provides a best-practice framework to mobilize investment toward high-impact methane reduction.

This executive summary, published by the Climate Policy Initiative and Climate Bonds Initiative in December 2025, provides a framework of best-practice measures for incorporating methane abatement into sustainable finance taxonomies. It identifies critical gaps in current taxonomies and proposes science-based, investable criteria across four high-potential sectors: energy, agriculture, solid waste, and wastewater.

The NewClimate Institute's 2025 update evaluates the progress of 25 major emitters, representing over 80% of global emissions, toward their climate mitigation targets. The report finds that while total emissions under current policies may peak by 2026, the projected reductions are insufficient to meet the Paris Agreement's 1.5°C goal, which requires a 43% reduction by 2030 compared to 2019 levels.

The Taxonomy Roadmap Initiative Progress Report (November 2025) details the global expansion of sustainable finance taxonomies, noting that over 60 are currently in use or development. While high-level interoperability is increasing—with 64% using ISIC-based sector structures and 100% of published taxonomies covering climate mitigation—granular alignment remains difficult. The report highlights that implementation is still in early stages in emerging markets and announces the launch of new tools at COP30, including the Sustainable Finance Taxonomy Mapper and Principles for Taxonomy Interoperability, to catalyze cross-border capital flows.

The 'Principles for Taxonomy Interoperability' report, published by the Climate Bonds Initiative in November 2025, provides a framework for sustainable finance taxonomy developers and policymakers to ensure that national and regional taxonomies are comparable and interoperable. Launched under the Taxonomy Roadmap Initiative at COP29, the document outlines seven high-level principles designed to reduce barriers to cross-border capital flows by establishing common design features, terminology, and implementation strategies while respecting jurisdictional priorities.

The 'Princípios de Interoperabilidade Taxonômica' report, published by the Climate Bonds Initiative in November 2025, provides a high-level framework to help sustainable finance taxonomy developers and policymakers increase the comparability and cross-border flow of capital. It introduces seven principles designed to align national and regional taxonomies through common languages, scientific baselines, and collaborative international efforts, supporting the broader 'Taxonomy Roadmap Initiative' launched at COP29.

The report outlines the investment requirements for smart grid deployment across the ASEAN region to support clean energy integration. It estimates that ASEAN needs between $4 billion and $10.7 billion in investments, depending on the chosen pathway, to improve reliability, reduce curtailment, and enable regional power trade.

This report by Ember examines the critical role of grid reliability and modernization in sustaining the economic growth of the ASEAN region. It argues that while the region has made progress in reducing outage durations, the rapid expansion of variable renewable energy (VRE) requires a transition from basic grid modernization to 'smart grids' incorporating digital intelligence and demand-side flexibility to avoid significant economic losses and energy curtailment.

This report by Ember argues that smart grids are essential for ASEAN to integrate increasing shares of renewable energy, maintain industrial competitiveness, and reduce economic losses from power outages. It estimates that investments between $4 billion and $10.7 billion are required to modernize the region's power systems, which could in turn create up to 649,000 jobs and unlock $2.3 billion in annual economic value by 2040.

The report "The Forest-Climate Nexus" by Climate Policy Initiative/PUC-RIO proposes a new financial architecture to transform tropical forests from climate risks into solutions. It analyzes 91 countries, categorizing them by forest cover and deforestation rates, and introduces the Reversing Deforestation Mechanism (RDM) to incentivize large-scale forest restoration through jurisdictional, results-based payments for net carbon removals.

This report synthesizes 30 research projects from the SUMERNET 4 All program (2018–2024) to address water insecurities in the Mekong region. It finds that water insecurity is driven by a combination of climate change, unsustainable development, and governance failures that marginalize women, ethnic minorities, and rural populations. Key interventions identified include people-centred infrastructure (e.g., rainwater harvesting, solar pumping), adaptive agricultural practices, and the co-production of knowledge through multistakeholder engagement. The report highlights critical gaps in transboundary groundwater governance and the need for more inclusive, decentralized water management models.

This report analyzes Thailand's draft revised power development plan (RPDP), which targets a 51% renewable energy share by 2037 to support economic growth in sectors like data centers and EVs. While the plan increases renewable capacity and phases out some fossil fuels, the report warns that continued reliance on imported liquefied natural gas (LNG) exposes the Thai economy to price volatility and geopolitical risks.

This report by Ember examines Thailand's need to accelerate its clean energy transition to maintain global competitiveness and support the growth of electric vehicle (EV) and data centre sectors. It highlights the tension between rising electricity demand from these sectors and the country's carbon reduction targets, suggesting that a clean power system is essential to attract foreign investment and meet the sustainability requirements of global tech companies.

This report examines a toolkit of regulatory and economic policy instruments used to curb deforestation and promote forest restoration in tropical regions. It analyzes the effectiveness of command-and-control measures, financial incentives, and the critical role of land tenure security, while highlighting how political cycles and electoral incentives create risks for long-term conservation success.

This report by the Climate Policy Initiative analyzes the scale and diversity of the forest-climate nexus across 91 tropical countries. It quantifies forest extent, carbon stocks, and deforestation rates to argue for differentiated, fit-for-purpose policy strategies rather than a one-size-fits-all approach. The analysis concludes that there is no inherent trade-off between forest conservation and economic development.

The executive summary of the 2025 Stocktake report by the Net Zero Tracker analyzes the prevalence and integrity of net-zero targets across national, subnational, and corporate entities as of September 2025, noting a rise in total targets despite political headwinds and significant gaps in target robustness.