Japan’s new Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi faces a defining moment this week as heads of state gather for the Asia Zero Emission Community (AZEC) Leader’s meeting in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia from 26 to 28 October.
The summit, which Japan has convened to help support decarbonization and development in the region, represents the first major test of whether Takaichi will break from her predecessors’ fossil fuel agenda and embrace authentic climate leadership.
As parliamentarians from Australia and Malaysia, we speak not only as lawmakers but as representatives of communities already confronting the devastating realities of climate change – rising seas, record heat waves, intensifying typhoons, hurricanes and wildfires.
Prime Minister Takaichi must abandon the failed fossil fuel technologies that have defined AZEC and accounted for a substantial portion of AZEC agreements and instead become the renewable energy partner our countries deserve. Japan has the technological expertise, financial resources, global influence and moral responsibility to lead the renewable energy transition. The question is whether Prime Minister Takaichi has the political courage to make this long awaited shift.
The new Prime Minister inherits a deeply flawed AZEC initiative built around expensive, unproven fossil fuel technologies that have failed globally. Since 2014, Japan has committed US$ 5.2 billion to carbon capture and fossil hydrogen projects – technologies with a 50-year history of failure.
Currently operating carbon capture and storage (CCS) projects worldwide capture a mere 0.1 per cent of global emissions, while nearly three-quarters of captured carbon is simply reinjected into oil fields to extract more fossil fuels. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) ranks CCS among the least effective, most expensive emission reduction measures available.
At the heart of AZEC’s problematic approach is a fundamental misunderstanding of what is needed for energy security and climate resilience. Analysis reveals that 35 per cent of AZEC’s Memorandum of Understanding involve fossil fuel technologies, with CCS featuring as one of the centerpieces of the previous government’s regional strategy.
Most damaging of all: Japan plans to export captured carbon dioxide to other countries, which will turn the region into Japan’s carbon dumping ground. Some of these projects will ship Japanese industrial emissions to Malaysia’s offshore sites, while others target Australian storage facilities. Malaysian civil society organizations have condemned these plans, with 90 international civil society groups denouncing the scheme as “waste colonialism.”
Prime Minister Takaichi must ask: is this the legacy Japan wants to leave in Southeast Asia and the Pacific? The climate crisis that is threatening our countries requires a rapid and just phase out of fossil fuels. And this is more than possible. Ninety-nine per cent of Southeast Asia’s solar and wind energy potential is untapped while research shows that a complete renewable energy transition would cost eight times less than pursuing CCS.
The legal landscape has also shifted decisively. The International Court of Justice handed down an advisory opinion in July that countries have a binding legal duty to end fossil fuel expansion and redirect public finance away from fossil fuels to renewable energy.
Japan’s continued promotion of fossil fuel technologies through AZEC fails this test.
By promoting technologies like CCS and LNG, Japan is essentially asking developing nations to subsidize the continued extraction and burning of fossil fuels—a burden that will fall heaviest on communities already facing the worst impacts of climate change.
In Australia’s Northern Territory, fossil fuel expansion reveals AZEC’s true cost to First Nations communities: the Middle Arm Development Precinct and Barossa LNG projects put Larrakia and Tiwi cultural heritage at risk, and in the Torres Strait, rising sea levels driven by climate change threaten cultural heritage, traditional customs, and the very existence of Torres Strait Islander communities.
Media reports have also revealed that Darwin LNG has been leaking methane for nearly two decades, demonstrating the systematic disregard for both Indigenous sovereignty and environmental safety in pursuit of gas extraction. Japan has poured billions into destructive gas projects, while creating artificial demand for fossil fuels across Asia, according to a recent analysis by Jubilee Australia.
These same patterns are being exported across Southeast Asia through AZEC partnerships. Malaysia is now poised to host what will be the world’s largest offshore CCS facility to date with the completion of the Kasawari CCS project by 2028 despite resistance from communities. In another project, JERA (Japan’s largest power generation company) is working with Petronas and other Japanese companies like ENEOS and Mitsubishi to transport additional carbon waste to Malaysia.
Beyond carbon dumping, AZEC’s promotion of gas expansion is also a clear threat to Malaysian communities. In April this year, a Petronas gas pipeline explosion in Putra Heights demonstrated the catastrophic safety risks of fossil gas infrastructure in densely populated areas. Malaysians should not be coerced to accept an energy future that puts lives and livelihoods at risk while renewable alternatives offer safer pathways to energy security.
Across Southeast Asia – from Indonesia to Thailand – Japan’s dirty energy agenda threatens to displace communities, pollute ecosystems and delay the region’s renewable energy future as plans are being made to install CCS projects at existing oil and gas fields.
These projects have one thing in common: the indelible mark of Japan’s leaning towards fossil-based solutions. The existing conservative trajectory will keep imposing significant opportunity costs so long as stakeholders remain entranced by the familiar rhythm of the fossil fuel establishment.
As parliamentarians from Malaysia and Australia, we are accountable to the people we represent – not to corporate interests pushing false technologies. Our mandate is to protect human life, public health and the environment; and to advance an equitable transition that uplifts communities rather than exploits them.
Prime Minister Takaichi must show real climate leadership by steering AZEC towards a people-centered renewable energy cooperation framework that serves regional development needs and ensures our long-term energy security. A just and renewable future for Asia and the Pacific is within our grasp. What we need now is the political will to choose and champion it.
Lee Chean Chung is a member of the Malaysian Parliament for Petaling Jaya. He is a member of the People’s Justice Party (PKR), a component party of the Pakatan Harapan (PH) coalition.
Steph Hodgins-May is a Greens Senator for Victoria. She is a long-time climate and social justice advocate with a background in environmental law, international diplomacy, and sustainable food systems.
