Julie de los Reyes
Center for Southeast Asian Studies, Kyoto University
The material foundations of a low-carbon transition
With decarbonisation, a new range of raw materials, with distinct power densities, geographicaloccurrence and/or spatial requisites will have to be mobilised to service energy demand. Whileprevious transitions have been marked by a progressive move to higher density sources, a distinctive
feature of the current transition is its reliance on resources that have lower power densities than its
predecessors (Smil,). The distribution, stability and geographical possibilities of renewablesources are also signi cantly different from fossil fuels. Resources such as wind and solar rely on
natural conditions to generate electricity, are variable in output, and are far more dispersed. Thesematerial characteristics are signi cant, since they imply fundamentally different arrangements tosource and harness alternative forms of energy. Ongoing experiments to develop, source and deploy
viable renewable substitutes are varied and place-contingent, as scholars have shown (see Kama,Bustos-Gallardo et al.,,), pointing to the need to understand the different challenges andresponses to transition and the differing impacts this has across geographical boundaries and scales.
For carbon-intensive but resource poor economies in the Asia Paci c, the push to shift to low-carbon
sources revitalises concerns surrounding the security of future energy supplies to meet domesticenergy needs. The economies of Japan, Singapore and South Korea have been built on raw materials
access overseas (Bunker and Ciccantell,) and nearly all of their energy needs depend on

imported fossil fuels. Decarbonisation privileges, in contrast, the development of indigenous supplies.
Solar, wind and run-of-river must be deployed closer to sites of consumption, and located in areas
where the production potential is highest, that is, where the natural resource is (most) available. These
locations are often remote, thus drawing in spaces that have previously not been part of the energy
landscape. Efforts to establish long-distance transport of energy carriers such as hydrogen, which isbeing positioned as the low carbon ‘fuel of the future’ (Trencher and van der Heijden,:), is

also leading to the revaluation of resources such as lignite, that were previously considered too lowgrade, unstable (e.g. to transport), or inef cient to burn, but which are now prized for their hydrogencontent (Hancock and Ralph,).

The low carbon economy, in this sense, is constitutive of new materials, new territories and ispremised on the creation of a new resource periphery. This makes access to and control of these newspaces and resources a strategic concern. As studies have shown, rural territories have been sites offriction, often revolving around competing land uses (e.g. for fuel or food production) (Borras Jr andFranco,, Yenneti et al.,). ‘Green grabbing’ — the appropriation of land and resources forenvironmental purposes—is occurring across a wide range of places globally (Fairhead et al.,Holmes,). In South and Southeast Asia, the combination of growing,

energy demand, theavailability of large tracts of contiguous land, ample solar radiation, lack of formal land titles (forfarmers, indigenous communities), and/or concentration of land ownership (a legacy of colonial rule)created fertile ground for hosting renewable projects like solar. This was the case in the Negros
Islands of the Philippines, the solar capital of the country, where land concentration—in the hands ofsugar barons—allowed investors to swiftly negotiate and secure land access for large-scale solar farms.

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Research on energy transition in the so-called ‘resource periphery’, i.e. Latin America and Southeast

development that are emerging with the transition to low-carbon sources, and the extent to whichthese reinforce existing (or generate new) inequalities.
Financing the transition
To date, little is known as to what drives investment and disinvestment trends in non-traditional
market economies. This is especially crucial to unpack given the importance of the three largest East
Asian economies, China, Japan, and South Korea, in the nancing of energy infrastructure projects
globally. They were among the largest sources of demand for coal, oil and gas, with active involvement
in both upstream (exploration and mining) and downstream (power plant development) operations
abroad (Makhijani,, Lee and Woo,percent of the total overseas
Institute,). Since, for example, they have been responsible fornancing for coal- red power projects globally (World Resource). Ironically, they are also positioned to be some of the largest funders of renewableprojects, especially following recent pledges to support a ‘green recovery’ to counter the effects of thepandemic by supporting the development of green industries.
The actors involved in thenancing of renewable and fossil fuel projects are highly diverse, withdiffering motives, investment horizons, and return requirements (Hall et al.,, Cojoianu et al.,). While private sources such as stock markets and banks—the key funding institutions in theWest—have their counterparts in the East Asiannancial landscape, and thenancial centres ofBeijing, Shanghai, and Tokyo have grown in size and signi cance in global nancial markets over thepast decades as economic geographers attest (Zhao et al.,, Wang,), state actors andinstitutions still remain highly in uential in ‘steering’ business activities in these economies (albeitvariations exist in terms of degree of intervention and control). States exercise allocative power overenergy projects and related investments through state-owned banks and development

nancialinstitutions, but also indirectly shape private sector investments through policy support. As scholars
have noted, the dominant business models are characterised by close integration between typicallylarge and diversi ed industrial rms, nancial institutions and the state, which result to different risk
perceptions, and distinct and usually more varied strategies in investing (Bhattacharya and Kojima,, Jiang,). For instance, Japanese general trading companies (sōgō shōsha) that are, Zhao,

among the top players in energy markets have bene tted from ready access to credit bynancialinstitutions who ‘strongly perceive the support of business activities for Japanese industry as a core
responsibility’ (Trencher et al.,:), while state support help de-risk large capital investments

required to carry out business activities outside of their home country (Chen et al.,). A fuller

understanding, however, is required as to how these differences—i.e. place-speci c institutional
norms and state-market con gurations—impact the spatio-temporal pro le of energy investments
and, importantly, the pace and scale of transition. Indeed, East Asian economies have taken great
leaps in energy investments that were deemed ‘paradoxical’ (Behling et al.,) but which resulted tosome of the most remarkable advances in technological development and deployment of renewableenergy in recent years.
* Notes are based on an upcoming publication: de los Reyes, J.A. ‘Energy and resource geographies: Progress, challenges andfuture directions’, in Hall, S. and Johns, J. (eds.), Contemporary Economic Geographies: Inspiring, Critical and Plural Perspectives.

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