Southeast Asia faces a “paradox of sustainability,” said Gita Wirjawan, a visiting scholar in the Precourt Institute for Energy and former Minister of Trade for the Republic of Indonesia, as he teed up the Southeast Asia Summit on Prosperity and Sustainability held May 19 at Stanford University.
The region is home to 700 million people across 12 countries with a collective gross domestic product exceeding $4 trillion. It is also rich in biodiversity, energy, and agricultural and marine resources. Together, these factors position Southeast Asia for greater economic leadership and a critical role in global sustainability efforts, Wirjawan said. But the opportunities for economic growth and increased sustainability are in tension with one another.
Video: Watch panel discussions, keynotes, and other highlights from the summit.
The Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability and its two institutes, Precourt and Woods, hosted the summit to identify and amplify opportunities to make the most of Southeast Asia’s vast energy, economic, and environmental resources. Over 400 guests attended, with featured keynote speakers including Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, the former president of the Republic of Indonesia; former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, the Tad and Dianne Taube Director of the Hoover Institution; and Nobel laureate and former U.S. Secretary of Energy Steven Chu, the William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor at Stanford, among other leaders.
“The world is facing a storm of crises. Climate disruption, energy shocks, and food shortages are affecting both developed and developing countries. Southeast Asia sits right in the middle,” said Yudhoyono. “This is the challenge of our time, and it is not theoretical. It affects how people live, work, and survive every day. I believe Southeast Asia is ready to step forward.”
The region’s population is now twice that of the U.S. and 60 million people will enter the job market in the next decade, said Lew Chuen Hong, chief executive of Infocomm Media Development Authority, which regulates Singapore’s telecom industry and develops digital infrastructure. Speaking during a panel focused on Southeast Asia’s future energy needs, Lew said, “We cannot ignore the fact that economics drives everything.” Southeast Asia today relies heavily on fossil fuels, he observed, but technology such as using AI to manage the electric grid and shift energy demand could help countries change their energy mix and “bend the economics curve.”
William Chueh, director of the Precourt Institute for Energy; James O. Ellis Jr., Annenberg Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the Hoover Institution and former president and CEO of the Institute of Nuclear Power Operations; and Lew Chuen Hong, chief executive of Singapore’s Infocomm Media Development Authority, discuss meeting Southeast Asia’s future energy demands sustainably and securely during a panel at the Southeast Asia Summit on Prosperity and Sustainability. | Bill Rivard
“Progress across the world – but particularly in Southeast Asia – really depends on our integration of perspectives about energy and the environment. We can’t solve the energy problem without solving the environmental crisis,” said Chris Field, the Perry L. McCarty Director of the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment. “The issues of energy security, food security, and economic security are intimately linked in a way that can’t be separated.”
Food security and blue foods in Southeast Asia
Increasing food security is one challenge for sustainable development of Southeast Asia, experts said during a panel moderated by Jim Leape, co-director of the Center for Ocean Solutions.
Small, fragmented farms dealing with predatory intermediaries and financial structures make up much of the region’s agricultural sector, panelists said. There is little political will to modernize, streamline, and standardize sustainable farming practices through consolidation. Private financiers, meanwhile, are reluctant to step forward due to the high perceived risks and modest returns.
“Food security needs to be thought of as one of the most pressing social problems, which then inevitably makes it a political problem as well. The only solutions are going to be holistic solutions,” said panelist David Cohen, the WSD-Handa Professor in Human Rights and International Justice at Stanford.
Governments can encourage private investment through risk mitigation, greater public financing, and the restructuring of supply chains. Not to be underestimated, however, is the value of region-wide, multistate collaboration, which demands stronger political leadership across the region.
“There needs to be structuring in how the government comes in, what kind of risk it can insure, what kind of capital it can put in, and what capital should the private sector put in,” said panelist Tan Sri Nazir Razak, founding partner of Ikhlas Capital in Malaysia. “We can get more private sector capital, but the government must underwrite areas where the private sector cannot contend.”
Watch the full panel discussion about food security and blue foods in Southeast Asia.
Seeking collaborative solutions
Arun Majumdar, dean of the Doerr School of Sustainability, delivered a keynote that emphasized the important role Stanford and other U.S. research-focused academic institutions can play in Southeast Asia’s economic and environmental evolution.
“How can Stanford collaborate with the people and institutions in Southeast Asia to address key issues related to security, to prosperity, to sustainability and to address resilience to climate change?” Majumdar asked rhetorically. “Stanford is proud of our culture of open inquiry to pursue audacious ideas, to take risks,” he added. “Taking bold steps is in our DNA.”
Majumdar highlighted the school’s recent first steps toward forming a new center focused on sustainability in Southeast Asia. The current mission for this proposed center, Majumdar said, is to create a sustainable world collaboratively. As a leader in research and education, Stanford must engage with the talent in Southeast Asia and empower people with knowledge, critical thinking skills, and a scientific toolbox to make a positive and tangible impact on the world. “What happens in Southeast Asia matters to all of humanity,” he said, “and to the planet.”
Guiding better policies
In a far-ranging dialogue, Rice and Majumdar touched on policy, diplomacy, history, economics, research, and the important place of academia in realizing sustainability in Southeast Asia. Rice discussed prospects for greater partnership between U.S. and Southeast Asian leaders in policy, industry, and academia.
The one-time Stanford provost said she sees the role of the university as twofold: first, creating knowledge through research and scholarship, and second, disseminating that knowledge through education. “I hope that it is recognized how essential U.S. universities have been in the creation of knowledge,” Rice said. “You can take almost any major breakthrough technologically and find that there was a university someplace at its inception in the fundamental research side.”
Rice added that she does not think it is the university’s job to solve all problems. Large economic and environmental challenges must be addressed politically, by people granted democratic power to solve them, she said. Universities should, therefore, provide light – not “heat” – to guide policymakers toward solutions. “Then, hopefully, [academia] can take that knowledge to partners in the political system who can take advantage of our research to make policy better,” she said.
Above all, Rice stressed seizing an opportune moment in history to build better and stronger partnerships between U.S. academia and policy, business, and sustainability communities in Southeast Asia.
“In Southeast Asia, the problem of sustainability is a real and urgent one,” Rice said. “I think this is a moment of opportunity, and it’s relatively early, but not too early, to get these elements right. That’s why I think this is a region that deserves our attention and our partnership.”
Steven Chu on sustainable energy in Southeast Asia
In a keynote address, Nobel laureate Steven Chu, the William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor at Stanford, detailed Southeast Asia’s “urgent” climate and energy challenges, calling for a long-term, comprehensive transition to sustainable energy and a new societal focus on human well-being. Like diseases caused by smoking cigarettes, he said, severe impacts from climate change may be delayed – but they require immediate, all-encompassing action. Turning hopeful, Chu enumerated opportunities in renewables, agricultural and synthetic biology innovations, and a need for massive-scale carbon capture and storage.
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Chu is a professor of physics in the School of Humanities and Sciences, of molecular and cellular physiology in the School of Medicine, and of energy science and engineering in the Doerr School of Sustainability.
Cohen is the WSD-Handa Professor in Human Rights and International Justice, a professor of classics in the School of Humanities and Sciences, and a professor of environmental social sciences in the Doerr School of Sustainability.
Field is the Melvin and Joan Lane Professor in Interdisciplinary Environmental Studies and a professor of biology in the School of Humanities and Sciences, a professor of Earth system science in the Doerr School of Sustainability, and a senior fellow at the Precourt Institute for Energy.
Majumdar is the Chester Naramore Dean of the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability, the Jay Precourt Provostial Professor, and a senior fellow at the Precourt Institute for Energy and the Woods Institute for the Environment. He is also a professor of mechanical engineering in the School of Engineering and of energy science and engineering in the Doerr School of Sustainability. He is also a professor in the Photon Science Directorate.
Rice is the Denning Professor in Global Business and the Economy and a professor of political economy at Stanford Graduate School of Business, the Thomas and Barbara Stephenson Senior Fellow on Public Policy at the Hoover Institution, and a professor of political science in the School of Humanities and Sciences.
This story was originally published by Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability.