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From Pledges to Phase-Out

Writer: Shreya Upadhyaya
Shreya Upadhyaya
Sep 2
5 min read

The feasibility for energy transitions in a world still built on fossil fuels



Ten years after the Paris Agreement, terms such as “net zero”, “energy transition”, and “fossil fuel phase out” have become extremely commonplace in climate speeches and corporate reports. Yet, when further examined, global coal, oil, and gas production paint a different picture. Despite commitments, many governments are still planning to extract far more fossil fuels than in line with limiting global warming between 1.5ºC and 2ºC.


The Production Gap Report 2025 captures this disconnect well. According to its findings, current national plans would lead to more than double the fossil fuel output in 2030 than compatible with limiting warming to 1.5°C. This is 77% more than consistent with a 2°C pathway. 


Coal production alone is projected to be around five times higher in 2030 than median 1.5°C-aligned scenarios allow, with oil and gas also overshooting Paris-compatible trajectories. In other words, while the language of transition has moved forwards, the material dependencies of our energy system remain firmly rooted in a fossil-intensive future.


This has been harder to reconcile in Asia Pacific, where growing economies rely on fossil fuels for production. For instance, Asia accounts for nearly 80% of the world’s coal-fired power capacity, and continues to add new plants, even as global coal use is expected to peak and decline.


Detailed Commitments, Widening Gaps


This paradox is exacerbated by the fact that we now have detailed migration pathways showing what a 1.5°C-compatible energy system actually looks like. The International Renewable Energy Agency’s 1.5°C pathway expects global fossil fuel consumption to decline by more than 75 per cent by 2050, with coal nearly eliminated and oil and gas use cut by roughly three‑quarters compared to 2020. 


Similarly, the Climate Action Tracker finds that Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (“OECD”) countries need to phase out coal in power generation by 2030, and unabated gas by around 2035, to stay aligned with Paris.


Yet, instead of steering towards these ambitious targets, many producers are doubling down. Large planned increases in oil and gas outputs are still moving ahead in countries like the United States, Saudi Arabia, Canada, Brazil, and Nigeria, largely aimed at export markets. These expansion plans only pay off in a world that warms well beyond 2°C, effectively turning them into a gamble against the success of the Paris Agreement.


In Southeast Asia, fossil fuels (led by coal) have met nearly 80% of rising energy demand since 2010. Coal now generates about half of the region’s electricity, and accounts for around 80% of its power sector emissions. 


Meanwhile, countries like Indonesia, Vietnam, and the Philippines have expanded coal capacity faster than almost anywhere else in the world (excluding China and India), locking in future emissions even as they adopt net-zero and carbon neutrality targets.


This widens the existing gap. Every year that new fossil infrastructure is approved, constructed, and financed, the eventual transition becomes steeper, more disruptive, and more unequal. Communities that tie their livelihoods to these projects face higher transition risks in the future, particularly if demand collapses faster than expected due to regulations.


For ASEAN economies that are both major exporters and importers of fossil fuels, this also creates energy security and fiscal risks: continued dependence on imported oil and LNG exposes them to price volatility and geopolitical shocks, while doubling down on coal risks stranded assets as global finance shifts away from emissions‑intensive infrastructure.


Everyday Lock-in

It is also important to consider the everyday situations that have perpetuated our dependency on fossil fuels. Petrol and diesel still dominate transport in most countries, fossil‑fuelled power plants continue to supply large shares of electricity, and coal, oil, and gas underpin industrial processes from steel and cement to plastics and fertilisers. 


Even as solar and wind capacity soar, they often layer onto growing demand rather than immediately displacing fossil generation, meaning that absolute fossil use declines far more slowly than headline renewable statistics suggest. 


This is defined as a carbon lock-in, and it has important social implications. Wealthier households and firms are generally better positioned to adopt clean technologies  (like electric vehicles, heat pumps, rooftop solar), while low‑income communities and workers in fossil‑dependent regions may face higher costs, fewer alternatives, and limited social protection. 


Without robust just transition policies, phasing out fossil fuels risks magnifying existing inequalities: some will move smoothly into cleaner jobs and lifestyles, while others bear the brunt of plant closures, revenue losses, and rising energy prices. 


In many Southeast Asian cities, for instance, car‑centric urban planning and subsidised fossil fuels have normalised long, congested commutes and energy‑intensive cooling, while access to clean public transport or distributed renewables is uneven and often concentrated in wealthier neighbourhoods.


Real Transitions, Not Fossil Fixes

Faced with the scale of change required, it is tempting for governments and companies to reach for “middle ground” solutions that promise climate action without fundamentally reshaping the energy system: carbon capture attached to fossil plants, “blue” hydrogen from gas, or vague future removals that allow continued high levels of coal, oil, and gas use.


Most 1.5°C‑consistent scenarios, however, converge on a different core storyline: renewables, energy efficiency, and electrification must do the bulk of the work, with unabated fossil fuel use declining steeply rather than being kept stable and “offset” elsewhere. 


This implies very practical priorities: scaling up wind and solar several‑fold this decade, modernising grids, redesigning cities and buildings around efficiency, and investing in storage and flexibility instead of new fossil baseload.


This needs to be accompanied by politically harder steps like cancelling new coal and gas projects, setting firm phase‑out dates, and ensuring affected workers and regions have credible pathways into secure, alternative livelihoods.


For Asia-Pacific and ASEAN reggions in particular, this means grappling with coal‑heavy power systems and young plant fleets: tripling renewable capacity and doubling energy efficiency improvements by 2030 (as called for by recent IRENA and COP presidencies) must go hand in hand with early retirement or repurposing of coal assets, not just marginal efficiency upgrades.


If climate policy is to catch up with climate physics, the focus needs to shift from managing emissions at the margins to directly managing fossil fuels at the source.

 

This is the premise behind emerging efforts such as the proposed Fossil Fuel Non‑Proliferation Treaty and, more recently, the First Conference on Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels held in Santa Marta, Colombia in April 2026.


Co‑hosted by Colombia and the Netherlands, that “just transition” conference brought together almost 60 countries and a wide range of stakeholders to explore how a planned, equitable phase‑out of fossil fuels could work in practice, from designing national transition roadmaps and tackling debt and subsidy structures, to supporting workers and communities dependent on extraction. 


It offered a glimpse of the kind of political and technical processes now needed: ones that treat phasing out fossil fuels, not merely reducing their emissions, as the central task, and that put justice and democracy at the heart of how the transition unfolds.


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