Canada is backing the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in its efforts to build out large-scale carbon capture infrastructure. As Southeast Asia seeks to navigate a complex pivot toward a low-carbon economy, Ottawa has deployed targeted funding to help the region develop mechanisms to capture and permanently store or utilize its industrial emissions.
Historically responsible for roughly 4.75% of global greenhouse gas emissions, the now 11-strong ASEAN bloc is increasingly eyeing carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS) as an indispensable decarbonization tool.
Canada, an early institutional adopter of CCUS technologies, is stepping in to bridge the region’s technical and financial gaps through a newly announced CAD 1.38 million (approximately $973,000) grant.
The capital is being funneled through the ASEAN-Canada Trust Fund directly to the ASEAN Centre for Energy (ACE), the intergovernmental body tasked with accelerating regional energy security and renewables deployment.
Integrating Carbon Capture with Grid Connectivity
According to Weldon Epp, Canada’s Assistant Deputy Minister for the Indo-Pacific, the initial funding envelope is explicitly designed to explore cross-border cooperation on CCUS and map out deployment opportunities. However, the strategic cooperation extends beyond localized carbon storage.
Canada has also mobilized a separate CAD 2 million ($1.4 million) toward a multi-partner fund managed by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) to support the ASEAN Power Grid – a massive regional initiative aimed at fully interconnecting the electricity networks of member states.
This dual focus highlights a growing realization within the bloc that scaling industrial carbon removal requires a deeply integrated, resilient regional power grid.
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Regional leaders, including ASEAN Secretary-General Kao Kim Hourn, have confirmed that partnering with Canada is a strategic move to leverage established Western expertise across both conventional and clean energy value chains.
The initiative aligns with ambitious domestic climate goals already taking shape in the region; Indonesia, for instance, has outlined a roadmap to operate at least 15 CCS and CCUS projects across its islands by 2030.
By anchoring these national ambitions to Canadian technical support, ASEAN aims to derisk early-stage project development and attract the broader institutional capital required to close its green investment deficit.
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