Beyond Participation: Ellen Bomasang on Gender, Energy, and Structural Change

Southeast Asia’s transition is moving into a more practical phase: not just targets and announcements, but the work of making projects investable and preparing power grids to be ready to absorb more clean power. For the UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO), that means combining policy and technical assistance with development finance tools—and partnering with regional institutions to help move capital into real-world projects. 

In this conversation, Peter du Pont of SIPET Connect speaks with Sarah Love, who leads FCDO’s Climate, Energy and Nature Network in Southeast Asia. Sarah shares her views on a few areas where she is seeing traction: growing momentum behind the ASEAN Power Grid, the role of blended finance platforms like FAST-P, and why project preparation and coordination still matter as much as concessional funding. 

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SIPET Connect: To start, could you briefly describe what FCDO is doing in Southeast Asia on climate, energy and nature, and your role within this work? 

Sarah: FCDO is the UK’s foreign ministry, and it also leads on international development. So our mandate is about advancing UK interests overseas—and that includes our development work as well as our climate, energy and nature priorities. The Foreign Secretary sees climate and nature as central to our foreign policy objectives. We won’t be prosperous or secure without action on climate change, and that conviction underpins much of what we do across the region. 

In terms of priorities, our work spans three or four broad themes. Energy transition is one. Nature and nature-based solutions, particularly mobilizing finance for nature, are another. Then there’s adaptation and resilience, and finally, expanding access to sustainable finance. 

My role is to lead our climate, energy, and nature network in Southeast Asia. I manage a small team of experts based in Singapore and Indonesia, covering areas such as energy, industrial decarbonisation, green finance, carbon markets, nature, and marine biodiversity. We work closely with UK embassies and high commissions across Southeast Asia, alongside climate-focused colleagues in those posts, to deliver on these priorities with partners across the region.  

SIPET Connect:  If we zoom in on energy, could you share a couple of partnerships or initiatives you’ve been involved in, or are watching closely, that you think have been particularly effective in moving the needle on the energy transition in Southeast Asia? 

Sarah: On energy transition, our focus is really on scaling renewables, using our development finance instruments and technical assistance programmes to support that, and to mobilise private finance into the transition. 

But I also think grids and interconnectors are critical enablers. A lot of development partners are looking at the ASEAN Power Grid and how to get behind that initiative. The idea of extending and connecting the grid across the region has been around for a long time, since at least the early 1990s, but it genuinely feels like there’s real momentum behind it now. 

We’re doing a lot with the ASEAN Centre for Energy and with ADB to explore how we can mobilize UK expertise in support of that. The UK has a long track record of electricity trading with our neighbours, and deep expertise, particularly on the regulatory side. So, a key question is: how do you design the regulatory environment for the power grid in a way that incentivizes private investment into big, complex interconnector projects? 

We’ve been working with ADB on the design of a financing facility that could attract other partners and mobilize private capital. We’re also supporting a few front-runner projects—for example, working with ADB to support Sarawak Energy as it explores potential regional connections, including interest in a Singapore–Sarawak interconnector. 

Another example is FAST-P, where we’re working closely with Singapore. Last year, we committed £60 million to FAST-P through British International Investment (BII), the UK’s development finance institution1. FAST-P is Singapore’s blended finance facility, and BII invested in the pillar focused on marginally bankable projects, where catalytic and blended finance can help bring in more commercial investors. 

SIPET Connect: Staying with ASEAN Power Grid, why do you think the momentum has picked up so much in the past few years? 

Sarah: It’s a good question. There are a few angles. 

Electricity trading with neighbours can be beneficial for energy security. It gives you more options, and we’ve seen that in the UK. It can also help with affordability, because being able to buy cheaper electricity from neighbours can bring costs down. And from a climate perspective, grids are important for enabling more renewables to be integrated into the delivery of electricity. 

There’s also a demand-and-supply story across ASEAN. Some countries have more available clean energy resources, and others have higher demand. Singapore is a good example, so interconnection helps. 

And I do think the prioritization of the APG by the ASEAN Secretariat and ASEAN leaders has mattered. Having successive ASEAN chairs pick this up—Malaysia, the Philippines this year, and then Singapore looking ahead—creates continuity. This is long-term; it needs sustained political commitment. But you can see movement: a pipeline of interconnectors is being developed, land-based and subsea, for some of the more complex connections are moving through pre-feasibility and feasibility work. 

SIPET Connect: Can you explain a bit more, especially how partners are coordinating around APG projects? 

Sarah: Coordination and information sharing are a big part of it, because the space is fragmented. 

ADB has set up the Partnership for ASEAN Connectivity on Energy (or PACE), which is focused on the ASEAN Power Grid. It brings together a wide range of partners, including donors, MDBs, DFIs, commercial finance partners, and others, to look at specific projects and work through what’s needed to move them forward, The PACE platform helps to clarify who’s funding what, where support is available, and how to link efforts up more effectively. This kind of platform matters when the scale of the challenge is so big. We need to work together to use resources efficiently. 

SIPET Connect: There’s a lot of debate and discussion about blended finance. Many people say it’s promising, but it also is clearly slower than we need and appears to be hard to scale up. From your perspective, what needs to change to mobilise the amount of private capital that the energy transition requires in Southeast Asia? 

Sarah: I think the challenge is that there are lots of project ideas out there, and in theory there’s commercial capital looking for projects, but there’s a big gap in the middle where they’re not matching up. 

Concessional finance helps bring projects closer to commercial bankability. In Southeast Asia we’re still learning what works best, what structures are attractive to commercial partners, and what needs to be demonstrated. 

For me, it goes back to the full project development pipeline. It starts with the enabling environment, regulations and policy frameworks that make investment possible. Then you need support for project preparation, because there’s a real gap before you even get to concessional finance: the preparatory work to get projects ready for investors. 

And then you have early-stage finance, growth finance, and eventually commercial finance and public markets. From the UK side, we have instruments that target different stages. BII sits somewhere in the middle, but we also work through multi-donor platforms like PIDG (with tools like InfraCo and other facilities), as well as UK Export Finance, and initiatives like Mobilist, which operates in the public markets space, supporting companies that are close to listing but need a bit more support to get there. 

So, I agree, projects aren’t moving through the pipeline as quickly as we’d like. But there isn’t a single fix. It’s about putting support in place at multiple stages, across the whole project lifecycle. 

SIPET Connect: You touched on knowledge and coordination platforms earlier. What role do you think knowledge platforms like SIPET can play, especially as programmes evolve or end? 

Sarah: I completely agree there’s a need for strong knowledge platforms. 

SIPET’s project mapping work, understanding who is doing what across the region, is really valuable. The more we know about what others are doing, the easier it is to align efforts, collaborate, and draw out best practice, and also to understand where things haven’t worked, which is equally useful. 

Good, accessible data on policy changes, enabling environment challenges, investment trends, and examples of what’s going well can help build momentum. There’s also a role for sharing learning from initiatives like FAST-P, how these platforms are set up, what challenges they face, so it’s simpler for the next person trying to do something similar. 

Peer-to-peer learning matters too: connecting regulators and practitioners, and bringing in expertise, including private sector expertise, whether that’s on the ASEAN Power Grid, storage, or other parts of the transition. The UK’s transition away from coal over the last decade has been steep, and there are lessons there as well. 

SIPET Connect: Before we wrap, when you look ahead a few years, what would “success” look like for FCDO’s climate and energy work in Southeast Asia? 

Sarah: For me, success looks like accelerated deployment of renewables, real action on the ground at scale, and clear progress on the ASEAN Power Grid, particularly seeing some of the ambitious front-runner interconnector projects move forward. 

Then there’s mobilizing finance. This means seeing concessional instruments catalyze more commercial capital, with investors feeling more confident about backing climate-focused, nature-positive projects. 

And finally, stronger regional cooperation, donors, MDBs and others finding ways to work together more effectively. In the current climate, that’s what we all need to do. 

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1. https://www.bii.co.uk/en/news-insight/news/british-international-investment-commits-60-million-to-green-investment-partnership-to-close-the-climate-finance-funding-gap-in-south-east-asia/  

JETP Project Portfolio 

In Southeast Asia’s fast-moving energy transition, many of the most difficult decisions are also the hardest to discuss openly, across borders, and with the right people in the room. That’s where ETP’s SPARK initiative comes in: a deliberately small, curated, closed-door format designed to give senior policymakers the space to speak candidly about complex issues.

Peter du Pont of SIPET Connect spoke with Adritha Subbiah, Senior Programme Manager (Regional Programmes) at the Southeast Asia Energy Transition Partnership (ETP), hosted by UNOPS, about why SPARK was launched, what emerged from the first dialogue, and what SPARK hopes to unlock next.

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SIPET Connect: To start, could you briefly describe the role of ETP in the regional energy ecosystem, and what you’re personally working on at ETP?

Adritha: Thank you, I really welcome the opportunity to step back and reflect on why we’re doing what we’re doing.

So ETP, the Southeast Asia Energy Transition Partnership, is essentially a pooled fund of governments and philanthropies with a mandate to support the energy transition in the region. We focus on Vietnam, Indonesia, and the Philippines, and we also have a regional window of engagement. We work across four strategic outcome areas and provide technical assistance across these areas.

The first strategic outcome is aligning policy with climate commitments, so really looking at where countries are in terms of their NDCs and what they want to achieve through the energy transition and ensuring that the policy ecosystem supports that.

The second outcome is supporting investments coming in for renewables, energy efficiency, and increasingly coal phase-down, or fossil fuel phase-out.

The third is about grids: once you have more investments and more renewables, how do you ensure grids are future-proof? How do you modernise them, extend them, and look at interconnections?

And the fourth is just transition, recognising that for all of this to happen sustainably, people and the environment have to be central to decision-making around the energy transition.

That’s broadly the role we see ourselves playing in the region. We very much see ourselves as working in partnership with governments, being a trusted partner they can turn to for technical assistance around the energy transition.

SIPET Connect: SPARK stands for Sharing Perspectives to Advance Regional Knowledge, and as a metaphor, sparking new ideas and connections. What was the motivation for ETP to launch SPARK?

Adritha: A couple of things.

First, we have a regional window of engagement at ETP, and it’s slightly newer compared to our country programmes. We have in-depth country programmes in Vietnam, Indonesia, and the Philippines. But the deeper we got into those engagements, we started to realise there are real opportunities for sharing lessons. Countries are at different starting points, but many of the challenges are similar, and there may be opportunities to collectively arrive at solutions that can work across contexts. That’s one reason behind SPARK.

The other inspiration came from the Wilton Park[1] format. It’s a place where they regularly convene a group of people to have targeted discussions, and it creates a trusted space. We wanted to replicate something like that for the Southeast Asian context. We were also lucky to be in that dialogue with key stakeholders from the region who were keen to see something similar in Southeast Asia.

And I think a lot of opportunities for capacity building and lesson-sharing can still feel quite “North–to-South” and top down in a sense.  What we wanted to create instead was a South–to South peer learning network, where examples and solutions are more contextual and relevant.

And SPARK also helps us understand what’s required in the region. It creates space to build relationships among key policymakers and officials, understand pain points and sensitive topics, and then think through how we address them through our programming. That’s the intention behind SPARK.

SIPET Connect: You’ve chosen a very specific format, bringing together a small group of senior policymakers and experts in a confidential setting. Why this format, and how is it different from the many workshops and conferences in Southeast Asia?

Adritha: It was very intentionally designed.

We wanted to target policymakers, mid to senior-level people who have a clear sense of what’s needed and can shape things when they are back at their desks. It’s intentionally small and curated.

We also wanted to create an intimate, closed-door setting, a safe space, so we can have very open conversations. The idea is to tackle complex issues: topics that aren’t yet mainstream but really need to be discussed in the broader energy transition context.

Having a focused discussion helps in some elements of capacity building, but it also helps us come out with a clearer sense of where things stand, what needs to be done, and what ETP and others can do to support.

And another element we’re really keen on is building peer networks. Whether that’s a WhatsApp group or simply introductions across countries, we want policymakers to feel comfortable reaching out to each other. Ideally, a policymaker from the Philippines should be able to pick up the phone and call a counterpart in Indonesia about similar challenges. That’s the kind of environment we want to foster through SPARK.

SIPET Connect: The first SPARK dialogue focused on carbon markets and carbon pricing for the energy transition. What feedback did you get from participants from Vietnam, Indonesia, and the Philippines, and what insights stood out?

Adritha: It was quite surprising to hear how interested policymakers are in this topic, the level of interest and the momentum building around it.

The EU Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism, emissions trading systems, these are very current issues that countries in Southeast Asia are trying to grapple with. What was really clear to us is that there’s an opportunity to ensure that the mechanisms being developed at the national level can “speak to each other,” because there’s more value you can unlock through that.

The timing of the dialogue also felt important. It was very topical, and there was a real need for the conversation. The way it was structured, with an element of capacity building, but also open discussion, worked well.

And maybe that’s the niche for SPARK: we can try to pick topics that have strong national ownership but also implications at the regional level.

SIPET Connect: A key output is the policy brief developed after each SPARK dialogue. Why is that important, and how do you see SPARK feeding into what ETP does next?

Adritha: The policy brief is our way of sharing the insights we gather through a closed-door convening. That’s a really important part of SPARK, because it puts learning into the public domain. And as a UN-hosted partnership, that’s incredibly important for us.

It also gives us an opportunity to continue working on areas that are identified for support. It informs our technical assistance programmes, and it can also help inform what our partners are doing or what we choose to do with our partners.

Just one example: following the last SPARK dialogue, we’ve continued conversations to explore the potential for ASEAN-level engagement on carbon markets and also looked at the Philippines’ ASEAN chairmanship this year and whether that creates a policy window. So that’s a very current example of how we try to take SPARK forward.

SIPET Connect: The second SPARK dialogue focused on financing the phase-down of coal. How do you view this problem and why is SPARK the right way to tackle it?

Adritha: The topic came from one of our regional projects, TRANSEND (Transition to End Coal), which looks at the asset-level coal phase-down. We were in discussions with a national utility in one of our focus countries that was keen to explore early retirement options. Our role was to provide technical assistance on what that could look like repurposing options, and critically, the financing of an early retirement.

We learned a lot from that engagement.  While it did not ultimately proceed to a transaction, the engagement generated critical insights into why early retirement remains so difficult to replicate in the region.          

What we also see is that there are many conversations happening around coal phase-down. Some policies have been put into the public domain, but there are also less visible conversations about how to keep commitments in place, how to ensure coal moratoriums hold, and how to explore early retirement without jeopardizing energy security     .

And I feel like policymakers don’t always have a safe space to have a very open discussion about this. That was the intention behind focusing SPARK on coal phase-down financing.

The financing aspect is also where things tend to get stuck. Policy is, of course, trickier to discuss across countries, and sometimes more sensitive. But I think everyone can agree that financing is a key bottleneck, and something we need to address if we want to advance energy transition in the region.

So, I’m really hoping we can create that safe space where policymakers are honest about the challenges, and we can think through solutions together.

SIPET Connect: Given SPARK is closed-door, how can knowledge platforms like SIPET complement the dialogues and help extend the impact?

Adritha: Because the dialogue is closed-door, it’s really important to think through how we disseminate what we can share publicly, like the policy brief that comes out of SPARK.

Since the discussions aren’t in the public domain, we need to ensure that what is in the public domain is widely circulated among policymakers, civil society, technology providers, and others.

At ETP, we’re not always the best at that, because our focus is really on government and policymakers. So, I think platforms like SIPET can help extend SPARK by disseminating those learnings, reaching the wider ecosystem, and hopefully bringing in partners who can continue to work on the issues that are crucial for the energy transition in this region.

SIPET Connect: Looking ahead two to three years, what would success look like for the SPARK initiative, and what message would you leave readers about why these convenings matter?

Adritha: Success for us is that SPARK is recognised as a safe space that convenes policymakers, so it becomes a well-used platform that policymakers can turn to for capacity building and for building peer networks around energy transition topics.

Another aspect of success is that SPARK continues to inform the work ETP does, but not only ETP. We see ourselves as part of a wider ecosystem, so ideally it also helps inform the work of others on the energy transition.

It’s a very curated, intimate convening, and for a busy policymaker, I think that’s exactly what they need. You need the headspace, a conducive environment, and a peer network to talk through these issues. Ideally, that’s what we’re creating through SPARK.

[1] Wilton Park is an executive agency sponsored by the UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) that convenes small, high-level policy dialogues designed to enable candid exchange and build trust among decision-makers.

In December 2025, governments gathered in Belém, Brazil, for the 30th Conference of the Parties (COP30) against a backdrop of record heat, torrential rains, and growing calls to move away from fossil fuels. The final outcome fell short of expectations for many. Fossil fuels were not mentioned in the agreed text, and the existing Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) still point to a dangerous 2.6°C warming trajectory, far above the level of 1.5°C called for in the Paris Climate Agreement and by science. 

Peter du Pont of SIPET Connect spoke with Frauke Röser, Co-Founder and Director at NewClimate Institute, about what COP30 revealed about the state of global climate politics, the emerging agenda of “transitioning away from fossil fuels”, and what all of this means for countries working on the energy transition, including in Southeast Asia. 

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SIPET Connect: To start, could you tell us about NewClimate Institute and the work you focus on? 

Frauke: NewClimate Institute is a not-for-profit think tank that follows the international climate policy agenda. Our main focus has been on just transitions, the mitigation agenda, and the finance agenda, and we are also increasingly engaging on the issues of adaptation, resilience, and loss and damage. But the core of what we do is really around just transitions, mitigation, and the finance that goes with them. 

We are based in Germany with two offices, one in Berlin and one in Cologne. We are now roughly 50 people, with a very diverse team of more than 20 nationalities. We work on climate policy and transitions, and we track climate action, climate finance, and carbon markets. Article 6 and international carbon trading are also important strands of our work, and we follow those discussions quite closely at the COP. 

One of the things we are known for is the Climate Action Tracker, which looks at what countries are putting forward in the form of their NDCs and climate targets and relate that back to the Paris Agreement goals. This is one of the key inputs we provide at COPs. Beyond that, COPs are also a space for us to follow negotiations, exchange with peers, meet partners, and stay in touch with the international community. 

SIPET Connect: How did COP30 in Belém feel on the ground, especially for civil society and indigenous representatives? 

Frauke: In some ways, it was a relief. I was happy that, for the first time in several years, the COP was held in a democratic country again. Compared with Azerbaijan, Dubai, and Egypt, the visibility of civil society and particularly indigenous representatives was very high. That was really good to see. 

At the same time, you could really feel climate change in a very immediate way. It was extremely hot. I stayed a bit longer in Brazil, and the temperature difference coming back to Germany was a real shock for my body. During the COP, there were torrential rains that were so loud you sometimes could not have a conversation because of the sound of rain on the rooftops, and then there was the big fire. So it had all the drama of the climate crisis around it. In that sense, it brought the issue home very clearly. 

Unfortunately, though, the political outcome did not fully reflect the urgency that you could feel there. 

SIPET Connect: Going into COP30, what were you hoping to accomplish, and which issues were you following most closely? 

Frauke: I would not say we had targets in the sense of expecting the COP to suddenly deliver what is needed, given the climate crisis we are facing. In the current geopolitical setting, it was clear that the international community was not going to magically come together in Belém and decide on ambitious climate action. Especially with the United States pulling back in various ways, it was a difficult set-up. 

Personally, I was following three things most closely: the discussions on transitioning away from fossil fuels, the just transition agenda, and the related debates on levels of climate finance. Finance is always at the core of the negotiations and often the stumbling block that prevents things from moving fast and ambitiously. 

Other colleagues of mine focused more on Article 6 and international carbon markets, which we view quite critically, and on the overall picture of NDCs and where we stand relative to the Paris Agreement. 

SIPET Connect: Many governments updated their NDCs ahead of COP30. What did we learn from these new NDCs, and what does that mean for the energy transition? 

Frauke: You are right that some updated NDCs are more ambitious, and that is positive. But others are not. Some major economies, such as India, had not even submitted their NDCs. And the EU submitted its NDC very late, essentially a day before the COP. 

China’s NDC is somewhat more ambitious but still short of what we know the country can do, and compared to what we see happening in the real economy. That is an important point: NDCs are a useful political tool and framing, but they often do not portray reality very well. In some cases, like the EU, the real economy is moving much faster and in a much more ambitious way than what is written in the targets, and countries then overachieve their NDCs. 

Overall, in our analysis, the current NDCs will lead to a temperature increase 2.6°C by the end of the century, largely the same as last year, meaning that the new 2035 NDCs did not change the picture. That is pretty disastrous when you look at the scientific models. I cannot quote all the exact submission statistics off the top of my head, but I can say that many NDCs came late, some were not very ambitious, and some big emitters had not submitted at all. 

SIPET Connect: One of the initiatives that drew attention at COP30 was the “Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels” (TAFF) agenda. How do you see that process? 

Frauke: The TAFF initiative was indeed one of the more interesting developments. It was started by Colombia and at some point there were more than 80 countries behind it, including many European countries. 

There was quite a bit of hope that this initiative would find its way into a final COP decision—some kind of formal language or text. In the end, it did not. Fossil fuels were not even mentioned in the final outcome, which was disappointing. 

For me, the main take-away is that there is now a large and significant group of countries that clearly want to pursue an agenda of transitioning away from fossil fuels. They have organized themselves around this and are continuing. There will be a conference in Colombia early next year, co-hosted with the Netherlands, to follow up on TAFF. 

Many of the countries behind TAFF are fossil fuel importers. From an energy security and independence perspective, you would expect them to have a strong interest in accelerating this transition. On the other side, you have fossil fuel exporting countries who are trying to stall it. I do not think they can stop it. At best, they can delay it. That is really what they are aiming for. 

So even though TAFF did not make it into the final text of COP30 declaration, it has created a movement and a platform that I hope will grow into the kind of multilateral collaboration we need. 

SIPET Connect: Given the current geopolitical context, how do you see the role of COPs now? Can they still deliver meaningful outcomes? 

Frauke: If you think back, the Paris Agreement is almost a miracle. I do not think we would be able to negotiate such an agreement today. The idea that 194 countries would agree unanimously on something that ambitious seems almost inconceivable now. 

So we have to be realistic. Having a unanimous, highly ambitious agreement from 194 countries is extremely difficult. Even COP decisions are, to some extent, voluntary. That is why it is important to have issue-focused coalitions and initiatives like TAF. They allow a “coalition of the willing” to move ahead together. 

At the same time, COPs remain extremely important. They show that multilateralism is not dead. They provide a forum where all countries have to come together and, in a very transparent way, show the world where they stand. That visibility is crucial. 

You can also see that something is at stake simply by looking at who shows up. There are now many lobbyists attending COP. If nothing in these processes threatened existing business models, they would not bother to be there. So what happens at COP, including NDC updates and long-term strategies, does matter, because it shapes the direction of travel and the policy signals that follow. 

SIPET Connect: You mentioned climate finance and the need for just transitions. What did COP30 change on those fronts, and what still needs to happen? 

Frauke: On finance, there was some progress, particularly around adaptation finance, which I see as a positive step. But in terms of the overall provision of climate finance, there is still a long way to go. 

We need to move forward with reforming the international financial architecture, phasing out fossil fuel subsidies, and making sure we are not only mobilizing more investment for green sectors but also redirecting investment away from brown sectors and into green ones. It is not enough to simply add green finance on top of continued fossil investment. 

On just transitions, there was more explicit recognition of what transitions mean for people, workers, communities, indigenous peoples. That social dimension was brought into the debate more formally, which I think is a success. But again, these are only starting points. The key is whether countries now turn that recognition into policies, finance, and support mechanisms that actually help people through the transition. 

SIPET Connect: The funding environments over the past year has been extremely challenging for many climate organizations. How has this affected NewClimate Institute and your peers? 

Frauke: It has been difficult. We did not have USAID funding ourselves, but we are impacted by the ripple effects. When U.S.-based organizations are hit by funding crises, they turn more to European funders. At the same time, many foundations with links to U.S. corporates have partly pulled back from climate work. And then you also have governments like Germany reducing some budgets. 

So the squeeze is coming from all sides: more competition for European and foundation funding, and fewer resources overall. Organizations like ours have had to adapt—rethinking funding models, being more strategic, and trying to protect the quality of our work while dealing with more uncertainty. 

SIPET Connect: Many of our readers are working on the energy transition in Southeast Asia. What should governments and private sector actors in this region take away from COP30? 

Frauke: I would highlight a few things. 

First, transitioning away from fossil fuels is a question of when, not whether. That message came through quite clearly, even if it is not yet reflected in the formal COP text. Countries that prepare early will be better off economically and socially. 

Second, the just transition is now more firmly part of the conversation. Governments need to think about what the transition means for people and communities, including indigenous communities, and to design policies that reflect that. 

Third, for public sector actors, it is important to have a longer-term vision of where the economy is going and what is actually beneficial for the country and its communities. When you look at the hard numbers, you usually find that moving faster on the transition is economically and socially more advantageous than delaying it. 

For private investors, everything depends on signals and the framework they operate in. They follow investment opportunities. When governments send clear, reliable signals about the direction of travel and put the right incentives in place, the private sector responds. COP30 did not fully provide that clarity, but initiatives like TAFF and the stronger emphasis on social and justice issues still send important impulses. 

SIPET Connect: How important are NDCs themselves as signals for investors, and where do they fall short? 

Frauke: I am not sure investors read NDCs in detail. NDCs are high-level political signals about where a country says it wants to go. They need to be underpinned by concrete policies, sectoral roadmaps, and regulatory changes that investors actually respond to. 

That said, NDCs and long-term strategies do matter. The level of lobbying around them shows that. If they were irrelevant, you would not see so many actors trying to influence them. They frame what comes next in terms of laws, regulations, and incentives. 

Ultimately, though, each country has to take these high-level targets and translate them into very specific plans and policies across sectors. That is what gives investors the clarity they need. 

SIPET Connect: In spite of the 2.6°C trajectory, you still sound cautiously hopeful. Where do you see signs of progress? 

Frauke: I would say I am worried and hopeful at the same time. Clearly, 2.6°C is not acceptable. But a few things give me hope. 

One is that multilateralism is still functioning on some level. Countries are still coming together at the COPs, and that matters a lot. It forces them to be transparent about where they stand, and it keeps the pressure on those who are blocking progress. 

Another is what we see in the real economy. In many parts of the world, the deployment of renewable energy and the falling costs of technologies show that the transition is happening and that it is unstoppable. 

And if you compare where we are now with ten years ago, we have moved the needle. In 2015 the current policies scenario led to 3.6°C of warming by 2100.. Now we are at 2.6°C. That is still far from where we want to be, but it shows that action makes a difference. 

Looking ahead, I think one of the important next steps is for more countries—maybe not all 194, but a critical mass—to adopt credible roadmaps for phasing down and phasing out fossil fuels. Even if it is “only” 80 countries out of 194, such roadmaps can send powerful signals to investors and real-economy actors. 

So yes, progress is too slow, and it is not yet enough. But things are moving in the right direction. Our task now is to speed up that movement and make sure that the transition is fair. 

Viet Nam, the Philippines and Indonesia have the resources and workforce to lead ASEAN’s clean energy future, but turning potential into progress hinges on creating stable, predictable policies and taking bold and near-term actions to secure investment and stay competitive.