East Asia’s renewable energy strategies: Low carbon developmentalism in the making?

The twin challenges of climate change and energy security are compelling East Asian states to develop stronger renewable energy and other green energy sectors as part of their low carbon development strategies. Energy has always played a fundamental role in economic development, and the cleaner and more sustainable nature of renewable energy (RE) systems makes them crucial to securing low carbon futures. The RE sector has expanded significantly worldwide over the last few years, and in East Asia more quickly than any other region. Renewable energy has furthermore become one of the defining features of East Asia’s new industrial policy and ʼnew developmentalism’, founded more generally on new configured forms of state capacity shaped in response to various challenges confronting the region’s nations. Studying the recent progress of East Asia’s RE sector provides useful insights into these key developments in East Asia’s political economy, and the region’s prospects for transition towards low carbon development: a particularly difficult challenge given the many high carbon-intensive aspects of East Asia’s economy.