ASEAN is projected to be the 4th-largest economy globally by 2030. To ensure ASEAN’s economic development remains inclusive, the Philippines, as ASEAN chair, unveiled its “RISE ASEAN” agenda at a meeting held on 3-6 March 2026. Chaired by its Department of Social Welfare and Development, the meeting covered four themes: i) resilient and empowered families, ii) inclusive development, iii) smart youth and innovation, and iv) environmentally sustainable and food-secure future.

Food security, which falls under the fourth theme, underscores the importance of climate and disaster resilience, as well as sustainable food systems. However, amidst intensifying geopolitical and geoeconomic uncertainty and the long-term impacts of climate change, food security should be elevated to a core, overarching strategic priority rather than a subcomponent of broader environmental goals.

Farmer-Level Vulnerabilities

While ASEAN’s agricultural sector contributes only 9.6 per cent of regional GDP and 13 per cent of employment, its small population is relied upon to feed entire nations, sustain food supply chains, and underpin the social stability that all other economic activities depend upon. The agriculture sector is thus foundational to ASEAN’s broader development ambitions, including those in the ASEAN Socio-Cultural Community Strategic Plan, a component of the broader ASEAN Community Vision 2045 (ACV 2045).

Yet today, farmers in ASEAN face many vulnerabilities. Firstly, the farming population is ageing, with limited physical capacity to undertake backbreaking farming work, and requires further support to adopt productivity-enhancing technologies and practices. In Indonesia and the Philippines, as ASEAN’s most populous countries, workers above 50 years old form nearly half of agricultural employment (48 per cent and 49 per cent, respectively). Among older farmers (60-64 years old), agriculture accounts for about 35 per cent of employment in the Philippines and 50 per cent in Indonesia.

Secondly, farmers live predominantly in rural areas, which suffer from urban-rural disparities in infrastructure, technology, and market access. Myanmar, for instance, has a 49 per cent urban-rural gap in access to electricity and an even higher 75 per cent in the use of digital payments. These disparities further compound already worsening labour shortages in agriculture, as urbanisation draws younger populations and financial resources away from rural areas.

Thirdly, farmers are often members of communities prone to disasters amidst changing climates. An earlier report on the typhoons and floods of December 2025 highlighted that approximately 15-21 per cent of the populations in Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia, and Singapore live in flood-prone areas. In 2025, more than 400,000 hectares of rice land were affected by floods.

Food System Vulnerabilities

ASEAN’s demographic transition in agriculture and the increasing frequency of extreme weather shocks brought about by climate change have created systemic vulnerabilities in ASEAN’s food system. These challenges have hindered ASEAN’s domestic food production, increasing dependence on imports of key staples. ASEAN as a whole relies on imports to meet 26 per cent of cereal consumption (i.e., rice, wheat and maize), and 13 per cent of meat consumption.

Beyond import dependence, regional food supply chains are today increasingly exposed to geopolitical disruptions. This growing exposure owes to ASEAN’s high reliance on extra-regional sources for 68 per cent of its cereal imports, 94 per cent of its meat imports, and 82 per cent of its fertiliser imports. ASEAN’s high extra-regional dependence exposes it to risks of rapid inflation in food and fertiliser import prices, and greater uncertainty about availability, amidst the Middle East tensions today.

Integrating Human Security, Aligning with ASEAN Socio-Cultural Community

Escalating global disruptions, alongside the challenges faced by millions of smallholder farmers in the region, have created a tenuous food security environment not just for farmers but for consumers as well. Stronger regional responses from ASEAN are thus required amidst an increasingly unstable global order.

However, ASEAN’s dominant strategy for agriculture in its Food, Agriculture and Forestry (FAF) Sectoral Plan 2026-2030 makes only scant mention of the kind of support vulnerable communities need today. The FAF plan mentions the term “safety nets” in the context of support for farmers, through the “responsible investment in food, agriculture and forestry” programme, but not in the broader context of the financial needs of the poorer consumers. Such framing of safety nets in purely economic agricultural support terms can be attributed to agriculture falling under ASEAN’s economic pillar, which focuses mostly on agriculture’s contributions to GDP and employment.

In contrast, the impacts of disruptions clearly go beyond the agricultural sector. In the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic and the Ukraine war, ASEAN saw an increase in the share of people experiencing moderate or severe food insecurity, from 14.7 per cent in 2014 to 17.1 per cent in 2023. What appears lacking, therefore, is a more strategic integration of a focus on human security into the FAF plans, defined broadly as individuals’ “freedom from want” and “freedom from fear”, as noted in the 1994 UN Development Programme’s Human Development Report.

Re-framing ASEAN’s approaches to agriculture and food security from a human security perspective is thus critical. The ASEAN Socio-Cultural Community (ASCC) pillar provides a useful framework to bridge the gap for vulnerable groups in agriculture. In the earlier ASCC Strategic Plan 2025, safety nets provided a more explicit focus on the security of individuals in times of crisis, ensuring that food, water, energy, and other resources are more “available, accessible, affordable and sustainable”.

Strengthening Food and Agriculture Resilience with Digitalisation

Farmers are the linchpins of ASEAN’s agriculture and indispensable stakeholders in advancing a more human-centric approach to food security.

A key application of the human-security-focused approach to agriculture is digital inclusiveness. Digital technologies are increasingly relied on to improve the agricultural sector’s resilience to shocks. Singapore’s Earth Observation Initiative (EOI), for instance, will use satellite technologies to track problems at the intersection of disasters and food-related humanitarian crises, as well as in forestry and land management. The forward-looking ASCC Strategic Plan also highlights how the transformative potential of digital infrastructure, literacy and skills can increase productivity and strengthen coordination capacities amidst geopolitical disruptions.

The problem is that, as vulnerable populations, farmers face uneven adoption of digital technologies, further deepening existing inequalities and leaving these groups at a disadvantage despite their critical role in regional food security. Addressing this gap will require ASEAN to expand rural digital infrastructure, strengthen farmer training, and promote knowledge sharing to scale the adoption of digital agriculture technologies.

Taken together, the long-term trends identified in both the ACV 2045 and ASCC Strategic Plan demonstrate that ASEAN food security is a multidimensional issue. Within ASEAN’s agenda for 2026 and beyond, food security should be elevated as a core focus, with greater inclusivity, while paying attention to the human concerns of vulnerable groups, including bridging knowledge and skill gaps in digital technologies. This holistic approach will better align agriculture and food security approaches with the ASCC’s long-term vision, enabling ASEAN to adapt to disruptions and emerging challenges and secure sustainable, inclusive, and resilient food systems for all its people.

About the Authors

Mely Caballero-Anthony is the Ngee Ann Kongsi Professor of International Relations and Head of the Centre for Non-Traditional Security Studies (NTS Centre), S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore. Jose Ma. Luis Montesclaros is a Research Fellow and leads the Food Security (FS) Programme at the NTS Centre, where Kayven Tan is a Senior Analyst. Mercedita Sombilla is the Director of the Southeast Asian Regional Center for Graduate Study and Research in Agriculture (SEARCA), an institution of the Southeast Asian Ministers of Education Organisation (SEAMEO).

This strategic analysis from BIPSS, authored by Alice Daversin, examines the critical inflection point of the ongoing conflict in Iran. The report breaks down the shift toward unrestricted energy warfare, the physical mining of the Strait of Hormuz, and targeted US-Israeli strikes aimed at dismantling the regime’s infrastructure. It also explores the resulting global economic shocks, disrupted Gulf oil supplies, and the unique geopolitical exemptions granted to Bangladesh.

ASEAN is projected to be the 4th-largest economy globally by 2030. To ensure ASEAN’s economic development remains inclusive, the Philippines, as ASEAN chair, unveiled its “RISE ASEAN” agenda at a meeting held on 3-6 March 2026. Chaired by its Department of Social Welfare and Development, the meeting covered four themes: i) resilient and empowered families, ii) inclusive development, iii) smart youth and innovation, and iv) environmentally sustainable and food-secure future.

Food security, which falls under the fourth theme, underscores the importance of climate and disaster resilience, as well as sustainable food systems. However, amidst intensifying geopolitical and geoeconomic uncertainty and the long-term impacts of climate change, food security should be elevated to a core, overarching strategic priority rather than a subcomponent of broader environmental goals.

Farmer-Level Vulnerabilities

While ASEAN’s agricultural sector contributes only 9.6 per cent of regional GDP and 13 per cent of employment, its small population is relied upon to feed entire nations, sustain food supply chains, and underpin the social stability that all other economic activities depend upon. The agriculture sector is thus foundational to ASEAN’s broader development ambitions, including those in the ASEAN Socio-Cultural Community Strategic Plan, a component of the broader ASEAN Community Vision 2045 (ACV 2045).

Yet today, farmers in ASEAN face many vulnerabilities. Firstly, the farming population is ageing, with limited physical capacity to undertake backbreaking farming work, and requires further support to adopt productivity-enhancing technologies and practices. In Indonesia and the Philippines, as ASEAN’s most populous countries, workers above 50 years old form nearly half of agricultural employment (48 per cent and 49 per cent, respectively). Among older farmers (60-64 years old), agriculture accounts for about 35 per cent of employment in the Philippines and 50 per cent in Indonesia.

Secondly, farmers live predominantly in rural areas, which suffer from urban-rural disparities in infrastructure, technology, and market access. Myanmar, for instance, has a 49 per cent urban-rural gap in access to electricity and an even higher 75 per cent in the use of digital payments. These disparities further compound already worsening labour shortages in agriculture, as urbanisation draws younger populations and financial resources away from rural areas.

Thirdly, farmers are often members of communities prone to disasters amidst changing climates. An earlier report on the typhoons and floods of December 2025 highlighted that approximately 15-21 per cent of the populations in Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia, and Singapore live in flood-prone areas. In 2025, more than 400,000 hectares of rice land were affected by floods.

Food System Vulnerabilities

ASEAN’s demographic transition in agriculture and the increasing frequency of extreme weather shocks brought about by climate change have created systemic vulnerabilities in ASEAN’s food system. These challenges have hindered ASEAN’s domestic food production, increasing dependence on imports of key staples. ASEAN as a whole relies on imports to meet 26 per cent of cereal consumption (i.e., rice, wheat and maize), and 13 per cent of meat consumption.

Beyond import dependence, regional food supply chains are today increasingly exposed to geopolitical disruptions. This growing exposure owes to ASEAN’s high reliance on extra-regional sources for 68 per cent of its cereal imports, 94 per cent of its meat imports, and 82 per cent of its fertiliser imports. ASEAN’s high extra-regional dependence exposes it to risks of rapid inflation in food and fertiliser import prices, and greater uncertainty about availability, amidst the Middle East tensions today.

Integrating Human Security, Aligning with ASEAN Socio-Cultural Community

Escalating global disruptions, alongside the challenges faced by millions of smallholder farmers in the region, have created a tenuous food security environment not just for farmers but for consumers as well. Stronger regional responses from ASEAN are thus required amidst an increasingly unstable global order.

However, ASEAN’s dominant strategy for agriculture in its Food, Agriculture and Forestry (FAF) Sectoral Plan 2026-2030 makes only scant mention of the kind of support vulnerable communities need today. The FAF plan mentions the term “safety nets” in the context of support for farmers, through the “responsible investment in food, agriculture and forestry” programme, but not in the broader context of the financial needs of the poorer consumers. Such framing of safety nets in purely economic agricultural support terms can be attributed to agriculture falling under ASEAN’s economic pillar, which focuses mostly on agriculture’s contributions to GDP and employment.

In contrast, the impacts of disruptions clearly go beyond the agricultural sector. In the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic and the Ukraine war, ASEAN saw an increase in the share of people experiencing moderate or severe food insecurity, from 14.7 per cent in 2014 to 17.1 per cent in 2023. What appears lacking, therefore, is a more strategic integration of a focus on human security into the FAF plans, defined broadly as individuals’ “freedom from want” and “freedom from fear”, as noted in the 1994 UN Development Programme’s Human Development Report.

Re-framing ASEAN’s approaches to agriculture and food security from a human security perspective is thus critical. The ASEAN Socio-Cultural Community (ASCC) pillar provides a useful framework to bridge the gap for vulnerable groups in agriculture. In the earlier ASCC Strategic Plan 2025, safety nets provided a more explicit focus on the security of individuals in times of crisis, ensuring that food, water, energy, and other resources are more “available, accessible, affordable and sustainable”.

Strengthening Food and Agriculture Resilience with Digitalisation

Farmers are the linchpins of ASEAN’s agriculture and indispensable stakeholders in advancing a more human-centric approach to food security.

A key application of the human-security-focused approach to agriculture is digital inclusiveness. Digital technologies are increasingly relied on to improve the agricultural sector’s resilience to shocks. Singapore’s Earth Observation Initiative (EOI), for instance, will use satellite technologies to track problems at the intersection of disasters and food-related humanitarian crises, as well as in forestry and land management. The forward-looking ASCC Strategic Plan also highlights how the transformative potential of digital infrastructure, literacy and skills can increase productivity and strengthen coordination capacities amidst geopolitical disruptions.

The problem is that, as vulnerable populations, farmers face uneven adoption of digital technologies, further deepening existing inequalities and leaving these groups at a disadvantage despite their critical role in regional food security. Addressing this gap will require ASEAN to expand rural digital infrastructure, strengthen farmer training, and promote knowledge sharing to scale the adoption of digital agriculture technologies.

Taken together, the long-term trends identified in both the ACV 2045 and ASCC Strategic Plan demonstrate that ASEAN food security is a multidimensional issue. Within ASEAN’s agenda for 2026 and beyond, food security should be elevated as a core focus, with greater inclusivity, while paying attention to the human concerns of vulnerable groups, including bridging knowledge and skill gaps in digital technologies. This holistic approach will better align agriculture and food security approaches with the ASCC’s long-term vision, enabling ASEAN to adapt to disruptions and emerging challenges and secure sustainable, inclusive, and resilient food systems for all its people.

About the Authors

Mely Caballero-Anthony is the Ngee Ann Kongsi Professor of International Relations and Head of the Centre for Non-Traditional Security Studies (NTS Centre), S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore. Jose Ma. Luis Montesclaros is a Research Fellow and leads the Food Security (FS) Programme at the NTS Centre, where Kayven Tan is a Senior Analyst. Mercedita Sombilla is the Director of the Southeast Asian Regional Center for Graduate Study and Research in Agriculture (SEARCA), an institution of the Southeast Asian Ministers of Education Organisation (SEAMEO).

Dear Readers,

The manufacturing sector plays a pivotal role in Indonesia’s journey toward becoming a high-income country. To support this agenda, SMERU has conducted a study on the competitiveness and productivity of Indonesia’s manufacturing sector. This study aims to provide evidence-based inputs for policies to strengthen the sector in the years ahead.

I would also like to recommend a journal article from one of RISE Programme in Indonesia’s studies. The article examines challenges in engaging parents to address children’s educational issues, including limited access to information, low levels of agency (children’s ability to make decisions and influence their learning environment), and weak incentives. It explores whether low-cost interventions by schools and teachers can help overcome these barriers.

I also encourage you to visit our social media channels, where we share how SMERU applies the principles of gender equality, disability, and social inclusion (GEDSI) across its operations. There, we illustrate how GEDSI is integrated into both our research activities and our organizational practices.

In early April, SMERU held its annual strategic meeting to reflect on achievements and set priorities for the years ahead. Bringing together all staff, the forum reaffirmed our commitment to advancing the Institute’s mission while adapting to evolving research, funding, and political landscapes.

Thank you for your continued support. We welcome your feedback and suggestions at comms[at]smeru.or.id as we strive to improve this newsletter and broaden its impact.

Widjajanti Isdijoso
Director, The SMERU Research Institute

This study investigates the evolving role of domestic workers (pekerja rumah tangga/PRT) in Indonesia’s care economy. Their labor enables families to participate in paid employment, education, and public life. Despite their central role in household functioning and the broader economy, PRT are still viewed as informal care workers, shaped by colonial legacies and cultural norms that associate caregiving with low-skilled, private labor. They continue to face limited legal protection and public recognition.

This study’s findings show that PRT—many of whom are women who migrate from rural areas and start working at a young age—operate under precarious conditions. Most are hired without written contracts and face unclear compensation structures, limited mobility, and minimal protection under labor law. Their work is increasingly complex, involving tasks such as infant stimulation, older people’s care, dietary monitoring, and appliance management, yet few workers receive formal training. Cultural ideas continue to normalize unequal working relationships between PRT and their employers, while public perceptions label domestic work as menial tasks.

The 2025–2045 Roadmap and National Action Plan on the Care Economy for a Transformative, Gender-Equal, and Just World of Work (Peta Jalan dan Rencana Aksi Nasional Ekonomi Perawatan untuk Dunia Kerja yang Transformatif, Setara, dan Adil Gender 2025–2045) marks a significant policy milestone by positioning care work as essential to gender equality and economic justice. However, major gaps persist. Local governments are largely unaware of the roadmap, and national planning documents scantily mention domestic care work as labor. There is also a significant lack of data on PRT, which limits evidence-based policymaking. Meanwhile, formal recognition of domestic workers within Indonesia lags behind policies for migrant labor. To close these gaps, the study strongly recommends passing the Domestic Workers Protection Bill (RUU PPRT) with clear labor standards, safeguards against exploitation, and recognition of PRT as skilled workers. Additional priorities include public campaigns to shift the narrative from pembantu (helper) to pekerja rumah tangga (domestic worker), accessible training opportunities, and better coordination among government agencies, NGOs, and employers. Integration into the formal care economy and inclusion in national labor surveys are also recommended. These reforms are critical not only for achieving fairness but also for building a more inclusive and resilient care infrastructure for Indonesian families.

The concept of development emerged with decolonisation, and the obligation of former metropolitan powers to give assistance to those newly independent states still far from the leading edge of modernity. Yet it also applies to those states already at, or close to, the leading edge, who are just as keen to continue expanding their wealth, power, and knowledge.

For the leading edge, the driver is that in capitalist societies, growth allows sufficient distribution of gains to offset the political instability that otherwise arises from inequality. For those playing catch-up, the driver is a potent combination of envy, historical grievance, status seeking, fear of weakness, and a sense of entitlement to have what others have.

The pursuit of development is thus a near-universal human aspiration. Yet only in the last few decades has it risen into the consciousness and knowledge of humankind that continuing down this path is rapidly generating a major contradiction with the planet’s carrying capacity.

In a long view of the anthroposphere, development has been driven by five basic forms of expansion: human numbers, social complexity, wealth, power, and knowledge. These five have been built up over millennia of practice and have huge momentum.

For most of human history, development in these terms operated without threatening the planet’s physical systems. Earth systems remained largely driven by their own orbital and spin dynamics, solar intensities, and suchlike.

But with the global onset of modernity in the nineteenth century, all the processes of development accelerated sharply. The anthroposphere’s insatiable demand for “progress” made ever-stronger impacts on Earth systems.

This challenge is unprecedented in human history. Never before have the deeply embedded social and biological imperatives to increase and grow run up against absolute planetary constraints. The Anthropocene crisis has come to a peak quickly, leaving the anthroposphere little time to adapt.

Yet a case can be made that one of the five imperatives for continuous growth built into the anthroposphere, one, increasing population, is solving itself, while the other four can be sustained without necessarily contradicting planetary carrying capacity. Human numbers will soon peak and possibly begin to shrink. There is no obvious reason why the increasing complexity of human societies, such as rising urbanisation, or increases in human knowledge, should be in necessary contradiction to Earth systems.

The main problem with the growth imperatives embedded in the anthroposphere hinges on the unrestrained pursuit of wealth and power. “Business as usual” in these two respects will quite quickly result in damaging, and then extremely damaging, consequences for human civilisations.

Given the powerful social momentum behind development, any attempt to confront the Anthropocene crisis by reducing or eliminating development, or requiring massive redistribution between rich and poor, will face insurmountable political opposition.

The obvious, and perhaps only, way of reconciling the developmental dynamics of the anthroposphere with Earth systems is to redefine development in terms that make it sustainable, and to get that redefinition widely accepted as the basis for confronting the Anthropocene crisis. This new understanding of development has to be presented as a plausible, fair, and engaging story that meets the needs of both the leading edge and those catching up.

The contemporary understanding of development is rooted in the nineteenth century experience of the first round of modernising societies.

A small group of mostly Western states (plus Japan and Russia) latched onto the idea of permanent progress and opened a massive gap in wealth and power between themselves and the rest. That gap was difficult to close because doing so required a social revolution. Since this core was the only model for development, they established the myth that development (modernisation) required Westernisation. This myth was widely accepted.

Driven by both a rapidly-expanding population and the technologically innovative political economy of industrial capitalism, the pursuit of wealth and power during this era was rapacious in its use of materials and energy. The global distribution of development remained highly uneven, though some catch-up occurred from the 1980s after a second round of modernisation began in East Asia.

This unrestrained model of development is the one that the Anthropocene crisis is making unsustainable. What might a development model look like that both retained the commitments to progress, and increasing wealth and power, while being sustainable in relation to planetary carrying capacity?

The idea of sustainable development has been around for decades but the mainstream pursuit of it has been flawed. An understanding of development that clings to a measure of rising GDP, as in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), will not work. Demand for energy and resources continues to rise, putting increasing pressure on Earth’s systems.

An effective and politically sellable sustainable development would have to meet four requirements.

1. Easiest is a rapid transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy and electrification. There is no shortage of technologies to achieve this, and there has already been substantial progress with wind and solar.

2. More difficult is becoming much leaner in using material resources. The energy transition itself requires substantial new resources, and the mining and processing of material resources are a source of greenhouse gases. Achieving leanness will take longer than the energy transition and will require multiple pathways: new technologies, higher efficiency, more recycling, and lower consumption of material things. Complex calculations will need to be made to determine priorities in the pursuit of leanness in relation to the threats that material extraction and pollution pose to Earth systems – and those in turn pose to the anthroposphere.

The pursuit of material leanness means that the understanding of “progress” will have to be redefined. Material progress is a key feature of contemporary development. The idea that progress is mainly about the accumulation of material things will have to give way to the consumption of services and experiences that require less materials and generate less waste.

3. To this end, ESD will need to be smart. Societies will have to collect and use big data in a major way, deploy AI to analyse it and use the results across society. Since AI is in its infancy, and its development is being pushed hard by military, economic, governmental, and scientific interests, the characteristics of “smartness” in this sense will continue to unfold rapidly.

There are risks to smartness. Cybercrime and cyberwar are already well in play. Unpredictable behaviour by AIs is emergent, and its consequences will depend on the balance between its (un)reliability on the one hand, and the responsibilities it is given on the other. Societies will need to be able to prevent cybercriminals and cyberwarriors from overwhelming the networks and analytics, and prevent rogue AIs from causing major social disruption.

A key question for smartness is whether societies will choose to network themselves mainly internally, by erecting barriers to global networks, or will opt for wider networks, regionally or globally. China is currently the exemplar for closure, and the now-defunct liberal international order was the model for open networking. The current political dominance of the far right suggests that the closure model will dominate at least in the short term. Which model will produce the best balance between connectivity and risk will be determined as practices and capabilities unfold.

4. ESD will require a meaningful degree of global coordination to stop “business as usual” from pushing the planet beyond its carrying capacity. This will not revive the economic globalisation that brought down the neoliberal project in the early twenty-first century. Globalisation will rest on shared stewardship of the planetary environment. The balance between the necessary regulatory regime and the operation of the market could, in principle, be done under either authoritarian or democratic governments.

Authoritarians would have to open themselves much more to global perspectives than they currently do and accept that climate change is the top priority. Democrats would have to put a leash on capitalism in relation to both national and planetary goals. Civilisationalism, currently fashionable on the far right, might be one possible framing, but it would have to include the idea that all civilisations depend on having planetary conditions that support them.

These requirements may sound like a tall order, but none pose obstacles that cannot be overcome with creative political thinking.

About the Author

Barry Buzan is Emeritus Professor of International Relations at the LSE (formerly Montague Burton Professor), honorary professor at the University of Copenhagen and Jilin University, and China Foreign Affairs Universities, and University of International Relations (Beijing), and a Senior Fellow at LSE Ideas. He is presently the visiting Ngee Ann Kongsi Professor of International Relations at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University (NTU), from 6 to 15 April 2026. Professor Buzan will deliver the RSIS Distinguished Public Lecture on “The Rise, Decline, and Replacement of the Western World Order” on 9 April 2026.

The US was among the first industrialised countries to ratify the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in 1992. This demonstrates the US recognition of its value in addressing collective action problems related to climate issues. More broadly, regime theory suggests that powerful states, such as the US, tend to exert influence on the structure of international cooperation in ways that advance their interests.

Yet, in early 2026, the Trump administration announced the US withdrawal from the UNFCCC and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), along with more than sixty other international institutions, claiming that they no longer served US interests. What has changed since the early years of the climate regime? Does the US withdrawal diminish the relevance of the UNFCCC?

The US and the UNFCCC

The US position in the international climate regime has historically involved compromises. Differences with other major industrialised countries were already evident in the early pre-negotiation phase, notably at the 1989 Noordwijk ministerial meeting, where the US resisted European countries’ proposal for binding emission targets and schedules. It preferred a more flexible approach centred on developing scientific research and national strategies.

Although the eventual design of the UNFCCC as a framework convention reflected a compromise closer to US preferences, subsequent developments often challenged the US position.

The 1997 Kyoto Protocol was a case in point. By imposing legally binding emission-reduction targets only on developed countries, the Protocol conflicted with the US long-standing concerns that climate mitigation measures could harm its economy and undermine its economic competitiveness, especially since developing countries such as China and India were exempt from these targets.

Although the US signed the Protocol in 1998, neither the Clinton nor the subsequent Bush administration submitted it for ratification by the US Senate. This followed the 1997 Byrd-Hagel Resolution, in which the US Senate unanimously rejected the Protocol terms in a 95-0 vote, leading to its non-ratification and the US’ subsequent pullout from the Protocol.

Although it had to compromise on some of its preferences and interests, the United States remained involved with the UNFCCC for more than three decades, even after the Trump administration withdrew from the Paris Agreement in 2017. Why then did the United States ultimately decide to withdraw from the convention itself?

The IPCC Influence and Divided US Climate Views

Conventional explanations might point to interstate bargaining and shifting national interests within the regime, or to changes in domestic political leadership and policy priorities. While climate change has long been a contentious issue in US domestic politics, the second Trump administration has distanced itself from climate matters more aggressively by not only branding it a hoax, but also by taking concrete measures to slow renewable energy expansion. This is evident in the recent compensation offer of nearly US$1 billion to TotalEnergies for abandoning its offshore wind projects and redirecting its investments toward fossil fuel development in the US.

Although the Trump administration’s rejection of climate change frameworks provides the broader context for the withdrawal, it does not fully explain why the US chose to exit the UNFCCC rather than simply adjusting its domestic policies while remaining within the regime.

One possible explanation lies in the growing influence of the IPCC’s epistemic authority in the domestic sphere. The IPCC’s scientific assessments play a central role in informing and shaping international climate cooperation. Over time, the IPCC has established widely recognised benchmarks such as the 1.5°C and 2°C global temperature goals for the end of the century, which have shaped global and national climate policy debates.

The IPCC findings have circulated beyond diplomatic settings and entered the US domestic debates through various channels, including the Congressional Research Service briefs to lawmakers and media coverage. As they became more deeply embedded in domestic spheres, they increasingly influenced policy expectations against which the government is evaluated and heightened the government’s exposure to greater reputational and accountability risks.

Furthermore, among the increasing number of climate litigation cases in the US, the IPCC is frequently referenced, including in cases brought by youth groups against the federal government and in cases involving fossil fuel companies and federal regulatory agencies. This illustrates how internationally produced scientific consensus intersects with longstanding domestic contention over climate issues.

In such an environment, continued participation in the UNFCCC may carry increasing political implications, as it implicitly signals acceptance of certain policy directions based on IPCC assessments, which might garner support from some constituencies while provoking opposition from others domestically. Withdrawing from the UNFCCC and the IPCC thus distances the country from the epistemic authority through which those policy directions are communicated, granting the government greater autonomy to handle domestic climate-related issues.

Does the UNFCCC Still Matter?

As one of the world’s largest greenhouse gas emitters and a historically significant contributor to the development and funding of global climate governance, the US departure inevitably affects both the UNFCCC’s financial resources and its political credibility. While Bloomberg has previously offered to cover the UNFCCC budget shortfall caused by the US, questions remain about the regime’s future relevance in fighting climate change.

At the same time, the US exit could weaken collective momentum. Other countries may see it as more difficult to meet climate mitigation targets without the formal participation of a major emitter in the regime, which may also discourage them from remaining committed to the agenda.

While such concerns are justified, the withdrawal of a single member, even a powerful one, does not necessarily undermine the value of the climate regime, which continues to provide benefits to participating states by facilitating cooperation and interactions, reducing the costs of policy coordination, and providing platforms for information exchange.

The scientific consensus reflected in IPCC reports remains instrumental in informing global discussions on climate mitigation pathways. It serves as a key reference point for countries when formulating and updating their national climate strategies. In other words, the broader institutional framework of the cooperation remains intact despite the US absence.

In addition, it is important to recognise that the UNFCCC is only one component in the broader landscape of global climate governance. Climate action increasingly takes place across multiple institutional levels and networks, including city-level initiatives, regional cooperation mechanisms, financial institutions, and transnational partnerships.

Platforms such as the C40 demonstrate how local governments in different countries collaborate and promote mitigation efforts even when national policies differ. This more polycentric structure of climate governance means that progress on climate action does not depend solely on the participation of any single country within the UNFCCC framework.

For Southeast Asian countries, this suggests that continued engagement with the UNFCCC remains worthwhile. Additionally, regional actors might benefit from supplementing their UNFCCC participation with engagement in other forms of climate cooperation. Such diversification can help ensure that climate action continues to move forward even amid shifts in global political leadership and changes in great power participation.

About the Author

Margareth Sembiring is a Research Fellow at the Centre for Non-Traditional Security Studies (NTS Centre), S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore.

The Global Water Bankruptcy report by the United Nations University Institute for Water, Environment and Health, released early this year, warns that the world has entered an era where freshwater systems are being depleted faster than they can naturally replenish.

In many regions, water stress is no longer a temporary issue, but a structural condition driven by overuse, pollution, and climate change. This condition has moved the world beyond a global water crisis toward a global “water bankruptcy”, with 6.1 billion people living in water-insecure or critically water-insecure areas.

For Southeast Asia – home to rapidly growing populations, climate-vulnerable river basins, and complex transboundary water systems – this shift raises urgent questions about the nexus between water management and peace and security.

As climate change intensifies droughts, floods, and environmental degradation, it increasingly intersects with broader development and security challenges in the region. Across transboundary and domestic settings, governments are left to navigate a difficult balance between community needs and economic growth, with the recent expansion of data centres, which consume significant amounts of water, adding another driver of water scarcity.

Addressing these multi-level risks requires stronger governance, regional cooperation, and integrated approaches that link water management with climate adaptation and sustainable development.

Water Bankruptcy as a Peace and Security Issue

One key policy message of the UN Report is that water bankruptcy is becoming a driver of fragility, displacement and conflict. How states and societies address these challenges will shape social cohesion, political stability, and peace.

As water systems move into a state of structural deficit, competition over access is likely to intensify – not only between sectors such as agriculture and urban consumption, but also across communities and, in some cases, between states. These pressures are particularly acute in contexts with uneven governance capacity, amplifying existing social inequalities, as vulnerable populations bear the brunt of declining water availability and rising costs. The erosion of livelihoods in water-dependent sectors can, in turn, trigger patterns of displacement and migration that place additional stress on urban systems and social relations.

Southeast Asia’s water-peace nexus should not be ignored. Absent effective and equitable management, the dynamics risk undermining public trust in institutions and weakening the social compact. In transboundary settings such as the Mekong sub-region, the persistence of water deficits may also strain cooperative frameworks, raising the risk of disputes. In this sense, water bankruptcy should be understood not merely as a resource challenge but as a systemic risk with far-reaching implications for regional and global stability.

Data Centres in Southeast Asia: The New Face of Water Competition

The strained dynamics in transboundary water systems are increasingly reflected at the domestic level. While many pressures overlap, the regional data centre boom introduces a significant new driver in water demand.

With stronger government enforcement of local data storage coupled with the rapid growth of AI, the sector is accelerating ASEAN’s digital economy towards its projected value of close to US$1 trillion by 2030. However, modern data centres often rely on water-based cooling strategies to prevent servers from overheating. As a result, their surge is creating an additional layer of competition over finite freshwater resources, as technology firms increasingly vie with traditional users – agriculture, industry, hydropower dams, and urban communities – for a reliable water supply.

Amid the explosive growth, local concerns have arisen. A single data centre can require water flows equivalent to the needs of tens of thousands of people. They have also raised concerns about unsafe chemical discharges during the cooling process, which could pollute local water bodies. These pressures threaten the well-being and livelihoods of people in the vicinity.

As a result, data centres increasingly shape political outcomes. In Johor (Malaysia), home to Southeast Asia’s leading data centre hub and recently the site of its first data centre protest, authorities have halted the development of water-intensive Tier 1 and Tier 2 data centres. Still, rapid developments have left many places lagging in comprehensive governance responses. For example, in Chonburi (Thailand) and Batam (Indonesia), where data centre expansions intersect with existing water scarcity, members of the public have called for more comprehensive environmental assessments and coordination among local communities, authorities, and private actors to curb intensifying insecurities.

Sustainable Water Management as a Confidence-Building Measure

The emergence of “thirsty” data centres provides a timely reminder of Southeast Asia’s vulnerability to both long-term and rapidly changing stressors, which together shape the era of water bankruptcy.

At the same time, experts have long emphasised the potential of water management to be a cornerstone in building peace and trust. Rather than advancing actor-specific interests, there is space to rethink water as a transboundary resource that can generate mutual gains. This encourages greater focus on the role of confidence-building measures (CBMs) in regional water management.

Centred on trust-building, CBMs not only involve direct state-to-state communication, but can also engage various actors, including the private sector, civil society, and local communities. Environmental CBMs (ECBMs), in particular, are vital to tackling long-term natural resource issues where communication, information-sharing, and collaboration can help combat environmental degradation and scarcity.

Strengthening ECBMs in water governance offers a much-needed approach. These are not foreign to Southeast Asia; the guiding principles of the Mekong River Commission (MRC) closely align with the aim of ECBMs. Its four member states – Laos, Thailand, Cambodia, and Vietnam – are mandated to engage in data and information sharing practices, including on water flow and water quality. Members must also notify relevant MRC bodies in advance of planned dam construction and participate in the mandatory consultation procedures.

However, while practices established by the MRC have successfully fostered a “Mekong Spirit” of dialogue and goodwill, shortcomings remain. Amid intensified effects of climate change, excessive hydropower dam constructions and, most recently, toxic waste pollution from critical minerals extraction, the Mekong River lacks joint- or river-wide projects. This has resulted in largely zero-sum outcomes, where benefits to one actor may cause harm downstream – a problem that existing mechanisms struggle to resolve.

Enhancing Multistakeholder Participation

Across several levels and shaped by multiple drivers, the wider pattern is clear: water insecurity intensifies where coordination is limited. The response must be a shifting governance approach that is proactive, not reactive. Inviting all affected parties to discussions becomes its starting point: authorities, civil society and NGOs, community representatives, and, with increasing urgency, private actors.

The approach needs to be anchored in strong mechanisms of transparency and community impact assessments before project initiation. Local actors cannot be treated as “add-ons”; they must instead be granted mandates for participation in planning and monitoring. Additionally, the private sector’s impact on water resources requires stricter mandatory environmental and water-use disclosures. These provisions would help bridge existing trust deficits.

On a larger scale, joint projects should be taken more seriously. For example, treating the Mekong River as a shared resource with funding and benefits split among all participating actors offers significant advantages. It would help cement a more informed planning process to avoid transboundary harm, build mutual dependence and trust, and possibly build a legacy beyond water management.

In an era of water bankruptcy faced by new and intensifying drivers, it is critical to reframe water management as a shared, multi-level challenge that brings together governments, industry, and communities. This shift can unlock more cooperative and forward-looking approaches to managing demand, strengthening resilience, and aligning water use with long-term sustainability goals, while also mitigating risks to peace and security emerging across Southeast Asian states and communities.

About the Authors

Adam X. Hansen and Julius Cesar Trajano are, respectively, Research Analyst and Research Fellow at the Centre for Non-Traditional Security Studies (NTS Centre), S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore. Julius Trajano coordinates the NTS Centre’s Climate Security Programme.

Executive summary

• Malaysia’s energy transition, centred on the 2023 National Energy Transition Roadmap (NETR), builds on a pragmatic foundation of familiar technologies and leverages on existing national capabilities. Phasing out coal, ramping up solar and expanding regional interconnections, while maintaining a stable base of gas and hydro, provide a positive trajectory for power sector decarbonisation. However, as highlighted by the 2025 Long-Term Low Emissions Development Strategy, current measures will not be sufficient to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 and must be augmented further.

• Published data on greenhouse gas inventories are imprecise estimates that are subject to measurement uncertainties, data gaps and evolving methodologies. Malaysia’s 2019 Fourth Biennial Update Report indicates an uncertainty margin of 15% for fossil fuel emissions and 20% for removals by natural carbon sinks. While the reported net-zero gap for 2019 was 115 MtCO₂e, accounting for the uncertainty factors suggests a variability of up to 80% and an upper bound of 208 MtCO₂e for emissions neutrality. Therefore, net-zero targets should be a directional aspiration rather than an absolute endpoint, with policy efforts focusing on measurable, verifiable emissions cuts rather than relying on offsets and carbon accounting.

• Installed capacity values, which are typically used to describe the proportions of electricity sources, do not automatically translate to the actual amount of firm, dispatchable generation. Once intermittency and baseload capabilities are taken into account, NETR’s 2050 installed capacity projection of 58% solar is expected to generate only 30% of electricity, while 29% gas could supply 50% to the grid. While installed capacity is a key metric for power system planning, it does not provide the complete picture necessary to illustrate the adequacy of energy supply and resulting decarbonisation impacts.

• Analysis of NETR’s power sector pathway for 2050 suggests that supply may be insufficient to meet projected demand growth, with estimated shortfalls between 27% to 53%. While the median scenario does reduce absolute emissions by 29% and emissions intensity of electricity by 62%, weather dependency of the system increases to 50%. In addition, 80% of generation sources would consist of those without readily available on-site energy inputs. Therefore, while decarbonisation metrics may improve, this would compromise energy security and supply adequacy.

• Diversifying electricity generation sources beyond solar, hydro and gas is essential for Malaysia to ensure the right balance between reliability, equity and sustainability. Mapping energy technologies against a non-exhaustive set of key parameters – operational emissions, independence from weather and climate, on- site primary inputs, ability to provide gigawatt-scale, baseload and dispatchable supply, as well as global technology readiness – underscores the reality that no single solution can meet all the demands of the energy transition. Malaysia should consider all feasible options across multiple deployment horizons, with energy policies strategically focused on decarbonisation, economic development and national prosperity, while remaining tactically flexible and adaptive to evolving sectoral developments.

As the year draws to a close, it is timely to reflect on the latest developments in Singapore’s approach to food security. On 4 November 2025, the hand was once again set to the plough, with the announcement of “Singapore Food Story 2”, marking another transition point in the city-state’s food security strategy leading up to 2035.

A familiar dictum in management is that one cannot manage what one cannot measure. This dictum is relevant to Singapore’s self-sufficiency targets in domestic food production, with the refreshed strategy presenting a step forward in clarifying such targets. Still, to avoid loose ends, we need solid follow-through on public reporting at the commodity level to engender better public and private collaboration in achieving food self-sufficiency targets.

The Benefit of Clarity in Setting Commodity-Specific Targets

Singapore’s strategies for achieving food security have evolved over the past decade from the 2013 Singapore Food Security (SFS) Roadmap to the “30-by-30 goal” in 2019, and today’s Singapore Food Story 2.

A consistent element across these strategies has been the prioritisation of self-sufficiency targets for domestic production to meet domestic consumption, which serves as a buffer against disruptions in international trade, alongside the strategy of diversifying Singapore’s import sources.

Where these strategies differed was in clarity on self-sufficiency targets at the commodity level. The benefit of setting specific commodity-based targets is evident from the relative success of the earlier 2013 SFS Roadmap. Targets were set for leafy vegetables (10 per cent, up from a 7 per cent baseline in 2010), eggs (30 per cent, up from 22 per cent), and fish (15 per cent, up from 4 per cent).

By 2018, a clear trend of progress and improvement was evident, with 13 per cent self-sufficiency in leafy vegetables (double the 2010 baseline), 24 per cent in eggs (above the baseline), and 9 per cent in fish (double the baseline).

30-by-30 Goal: Lack of Target Clarity

By contrast, no commodity-specific production targets were set in the 2019 30-by-30 goal. Instead, the framing of self-sufficiency was broadened to a 30 per cent “nutritional self-sufficiency” target, with the remaining 70 per cent to be imported.

On one hand, this framing considered the diverse nutritional needs of the population rather than the quantity of commodities to be produced, thereby better capturing food security concerns. However, the nutrition-based framing of self-sufficiency made the requirements less concrete and specific than the previous commodity-quantity targets measured in tonnage of eggs, vegetables, and fish. It was not clarified which nutrients the food authority was prioritising, in terms of caloric, mineral, or vitamin content.

Given the complexity and ambiguity of the 30-by-30 goal, no baseline level nor progress updates on national nutritional self-sufficiency were ever published while the strategy was in place. In fact, the Singapore Food Agency’s (SFA) reports reflected commodity-based self-sufficiency in tonnage, even if the national strategy now required nutrition-based reporting.

While productivity has increased among recipients of productivity-enhancement grants in their pursuit of the 30-by-30 goal, the overall outcome is harder to assess today in the absence of published statistics on national nutrition self-sufficiency.

Singapore Food Story 2: The Need for Greater Clarity

Today, there is somewhat greater clarity with Singapore Food Story 2, which has slightly more defined targets for two commodity groups – fibres and proteins – that are sub-components of the previous national nutritional self-sufficiency goal. By 2035, the city-state will be 20 per cent self-sufficient in fibres (including commodities like fresh leafy and fruited vegetables, beansprouts, and mushrooms) and 30 per cent in proteins (including eggs and seafood). Another improvement is that the baseline levels are now published: 8 per cent for fibres and 26 per cent for proteins, as of 2024.

Yet the risk remains that Singapore Food Story 2’s targets will not be seen as hard targets but only as aspirations. This was, in fact, the predicament of the 30-by-30 “goal” which was initially considered a “target” but, in the interim before the announcement of Singapore Food Story 2, was seen only as an “aspiration”.

If the new strategy is to be credible, we need to provide further clarity by breaking down the targets for the fibre and protein commodity groups into more specific commodity targets. This would require annual reporting on target achievement at the commodity level, enabling earlier guidance when gaps arise. Doing so would also help set accountabilities across the private and public sectors, enabling timely strategic adjustments to achieve the 2035 fibre and protein self-sufficiency targets.

Addressing the Challenges to Profitability: Leafy Vegetables

By providing clear commodity-specific targets, the government will be able to provide more targeted investment to address the unique bottlenecks each commodity faces.

An underlying issue to address, previously observed at the commodity level, is the profitability challenge facing farming. For leafy vegetables, the previous focus was on improving productivity in terms of tonnage of food produced per hectare, given the limited land available. Focused R&D grants for technologies that boost productivity allowed for a 10 per cent productivity growth in vegetable farming from 2019 to 2024.

The SFA also provided additional land and facilities through tenders to enable the adoption of indoor-farm technologies, which can enhance productivity manifold through controlled growing environments and the ability to grow on multiple layers within vertical farms.

The irony was that despite greater availability of land, facilities, and technologies, the city-state saw its leafy vegetable farmers postpone expansion plans, scale down operations, and, in the worst cases, shut down farms. This discrepancy highlights a key challenge: getting private-sector farmers on board in ways that are profitable for them as well.

A 2019 report by the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS) identified a potential root cause: property tax on indoor farm facilities could affect the farmers’ profitability and, in turn, their expansion decisions. Property tax exemptions are common among Singapore’s strategic manufacturing industries, but they do not apply to upstream farm production.

Using the UrbanAgInvest tool (©NTU), the report found that about two-thirds of total investment costs in indoor farms are from fixed machinery, such as growing racks, temperature controls, smart LED lighting, and automation. As a result, farmers using indoor farm machinery would be assessed at much higher property taxes than farmers who do not adopt such technologies. Thus, the property tax disincentivised farm owners from leveraging technologies to expand their production.

Plug-and-Play Tenanted Spaces?

Under the Singapore Food Story 2, a solution to the property taxation cost issue is the initiative being explored today to provide “plug-and-play tenanted spaces” for farmers to do indoor vertical farming. Essentially, this would allow farmers to avoid paying such taxes, as they do not own the spaces.

But this raises the question: What rental rate would enable an expansion of domestic production of leafy vegetables while also providing sufficient tax revenues? In the decade to come, the realisation of Singapore’s refreshed food security strategy will hinge critically on how it pivots to create conducive incentive mechanisms that address the profitability challenges faced by each of its key commodities under fibre and protein groups, while balancing these with the city-state’s broader economic requirements.

About the Author

Jose Ma. Luis Montesclaros is a Research Fellow and the Food Security Lead at the Centre for Non-Traditional Security Studies (NTS Centre), S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore.