Laurence Delina Authors Two New Papers on Southeast Asia Climate Policy

Laurence Delina, a Visiting Research Fellow at the Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future, recently authored two new papers on climate change and sustainable development policy in Southeast Asia.

In the first paper, published in the journal Climatic Change, he explores the potential for future geoengineering research in Southeast Asia. Recounting the discussions among a group of social scientists, climate modelers, and environmental policy experts at a workshop in Indonesia, Delina makes the case for more engagement in geoengineering debates in the Global South, especially in climate-vulnerable regions like Southeast Asia.

In the second paper, published in the journal Energy Strategy Reviews, Delina explores the potential impacts of China’s Global Energy Interconnection (GEI) initiative — a project that would connect fragmented national electrical grids into regionally and globally connected systems — on Southeast Asian countries’ pursuit of better energy connectivity. He explains the technical and political challenges of the endeavor and the potential for cleaner and more reliable energy connectivity in the region.

Delina is an assistant professor at the Division of Environment and Sustainability at The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. While a post-doctoral associate at the Pardee Center from 2015-2019, Delina led a research project called The Future of Energy Systems in Developing Countries, which sought to understand the options and trade-offs for achieving a secure and sustainable energy future in a select number of developing countries.