Keeping Cool in Southeast Asia

Energy Consumption and Urban Air-Conditioning

M. Sahakian

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9781137308825
• eBook ISBN: 9781137308832
• Topic: Economics
• Subtopic: Environmental Economics
• Index: Economics

Against the backdrop of the environmental impact of household electricity consumption and the history of cooling practices, Marlyne Sahakian considers how people keep cool, from Metro Manila to other mega-cities in Southeast Asia.

1

Introduction

We are living in an urban world. Over half the world’s population is estimated to reside in urban centers, with a concentration of urban population growth in less-developed regions, particularly in Asia, which is home to 11 mega-cities (cities with a population of over 10 million people). Most of these metropolitan areas are in warm to hot climates. One challenge lies in anticipating the energy requirements of these urban populations for keeping cool, particularly as increases in affluence can translate to a moving-up on the energy ladder from biomass to fossil fuels, and from fans to air-conditioning. This book is focused on a specific form of consumption directly related to energy, climate and the environment: electricity consumption for residential cooling in South-east Asia’s mega-cities. It takes on the question of how people go about keeping cool in their everyday lives in Metro Manila, the Philippines, and how this relates to efforts to reduce energy consumption towards more ‘sustainable’ consumption patterns – reflecting as well on other mega-cities in the region.

1.1 Consumption patterns, practices and policies

Consumption in this book refers to the buying, usage and disposal of products and services by what are variously called consumers, individuals, households, socio-economic groups, employees or citizens. Households are of interest worldwide because they account for a large share of demand for products and services, in addition to the private and public sectors. Households are consumers of both direct and indirect energy: the former, in their consumption of household electricity or fuel for private transport; the latter, in terms of energy embodied in the foods and other products they consume, used during production, transport, packaging and disposal. Direct and indirect material and energy consumption patterns are increasing globally, as developing countries follow the trail blazed by more industrialized countries.

Addressing current and future energy consumption patterns is significant for both environmental and social reasons. In the span of three generations, environmental problems have shifted from being largely local and regional issues, such as localized pollution and waste management, to global issues, including atmospheric pollution and climate change, but also biodiversity loss and the alteration of the global nitrogen cycle. Energy consumption is quite unique in this regard: fossil fuels combusted locally have an immediate global impact as greenhouse gas emissions enter the biosphere at an unprecedented rate. Global energy demand is expected to increase by one-third by 2035, with energy-related carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions rising from an estimated 31.2 gigatonnes (Gt) in 2011 to 37.0 Gt in 2035, pointing to a long-term average temperature increase of 3.6 degrees Celsius (IEA, 2012). A new term has been proposed to define this period of history, following the 10,000-year Holocene era: the Anthropocene,¹ in which mankind has become a dominant geological force (Crutzen and Stoermer, 2000).

As a result of atmospheric pollution tied to our activities, the world will become a hotter place. In hot and humid Southeast Asia, compounded to this is what is known as the Urban Heat Island (UHI) phenomenon, whereby cities experience higher temperatures relative to surrounding areas due to high population density, the built environment (asphalt and concrete, which tend to store heat, for example) and other factors, including heat released by motorized vehicles and air-conditioning units. As of 2010, Asia and the Pacific is the second least urbanized region of the world, with only 43 percent of the population living in urban areas; however, it has the second fastest urban population growth rate, at an average of 2 percent per annum (2005–2010). For the same period, and in Southeast Asia specifically, urban population growth was 2.2 percent per year (ESCAP, 2011). In addition to an overall increase in temperatures, people living in cities will experience an even hotter direct environment than those living in rural settings, which will no doubt lead to an increase in the overall consumption of air-conditioning services. Any decrease in residential heating consumption worldwide, due to climate change, will be greatly offset by worldwide energy demand for cooling (Isaac and Vuuren, 2008).

Emerging economies – and fast-growing cities in Asia in particular – are driving global energy markets and redrawing the global energy map. Cities will experience the effects of climate change, but are also contributing to climate change through their consumption patterns. Without major changes in public policies, Asia is poised to be the main driver of a 40 percent expansion in global energy demand over the next two decades (IEA, 2009). Southeast Asia’s energy demand is expected to expand by 76 percent during the period 2007–2030, or at an average growth rate of 2.5 percent – much faster than the world average rate (IEA, 2009). One of the reasons for this is population growth in the region: between 1990 and 2007, Southeast Asia’s population grew at an average rate of 1.5 percent per annum, reaching 563 million, a level that exceeds the population of the European Union at 500 million (as of January 2010) – with the largest population residing in Indonesia (230 million) followed by the Philippines (92 million). How to meet a growing energy demand in Southeast Asia, while recognizing the negative effects of regional fossil fuel combustion on the global atmosphere, will remain an important issue in the years to come.

Energy consumption is not solely an environmental issue, but also a social issue. There is a link between access to energy and achieving the Millennium Development Goals, in relation to health and security (Wilkinson et al., 2007) as well as environmental sustainability and poverty alleviation. As noted in the Report of the Ninth Session of the Commission on Sustainable Development: ‘Wide disparities in the levels of energy consumption within and between developed and developing countries exist. Current patterns of energy production, distribution and utilization are unsustainable’ (CSD, 2001b). The problem does not lie in the availability of energy sources: researchers have found that the total amount of primary energy currently consumed worldwide is more than sufficient for attaining high human development for all (Steinberger and Roberts, 2010). Yet fuel poverty remains a reality for more than 2 billion people worldwide who lack access to clean energy and are exposed to indoor air pollutants from the inefficient burning of biomass fuels. Nearly 1.3 billion people remain without access to electricity. For these people, an increase in household energy consumption is not about greed, but about need.

Consumption practices are also changing at an unprecedented rate in Asia. The region is a center of gravity for the ‘new consumer’ phenomenon, whereby a rise in affluence often translates into consumers who enjoy better diets, private transport, throwaway products and fashion items (Myers and Kent, 2004). Today, emerging economies are following the resource-intensive development path of more industrialized countries, experiencing what Walt Rostow called – in his influential and controversial framework on economic growth – ‘a widespread boom in consumers’ goods and services’ along with ‘the acceptance and absorption of the age of high mass-consumption’ (1960: 88). While there has been hope that these countries will ‘leapfrog’ over a period of harmful environmental degradation by learning from the errors of the more industrialized world (Chiu and Yong, 2004; Tukker, 2005) or reject the consumption-driven patterns experienced in the West (Nair, 2011), such transitions towards sustainable forms of development have yet to become the dominant model.

Policies in relation to ‘sustainable development’ have also changed over time. Environmental problems were once considered to be local or regional in scope, such as the air pollution caused in newly industrialized cities. Early environmental movements in the 1960s and 1970s, in the context of Europe and North America, were mainly concerned with cleaning up ‘end of pipe’ pollution.² In 1983, the World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED) was convened by the United Nations following the growing realization that environmental problems were global in nature and that it was in the common interest of all nations to establish policies to address these concerns. Taking its name from the WCED Chair, Dr Gro Harlem Brundtland,³ the now-famous ‘Our Common Future’ or Brundtland Report provides an oft-quoted definition of sustainable development as development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs (WCED, 1987).

According to this definition, sustainable development exists at the intersection of three spheres, where economic growth meets environmental promotion and social equity. In the Brundtland Report, economic growth is seen as both necessary and beneficial, as long as it is ‘the right kind of growth,’ and, more specifically, growth through efficient production systems, thus promoting an era of technological optimism.⁴ Today and the world over, the term ‘sustainable development’ is used by a multitude of actors, from corporations to political leaders and non-governmental organizations (NGOs), to define their activities. It has become a catchall phrase and somewhat of an empty promise. Different paradigms are gaining in momentum, including the solidarity economy and new economics, which attempt to place people and planet above profit. For some, efforts in this direction – both in theory and in practice – are being considered as part of a growing social movement worldwide, challenging the dominant capitalist system.

In the past, environmental problems were also seen as being the responsibility of production systems. In the last 30 years there has been a shift upstream from ‘end of pipe’ problems to cleaner production processes. More recently, consumers have been placed at the forefront. There are now policy efforts underway at every level, from community programs to international campaigns, to curb consumption patterns that cause environmental and social harm. After the Earth Summit in Rio in 1992, Agenda 21 – Rio’s framework for achieving sustainable development – included a fourth chapter titled ‘Changing Consumption Patterns,’ and the newly created United Nations Commission for Sustainable Development (CSD) began a research program around sustainable consumption.⁵

Yet, in most policy-driven efforts towards ‘sustainable consumption,’ the common understanding of consumption in relation to sustainability is flawed. Too often, the focus is placed on either single individuals or units of technology. We expect massive changes to occur while depending on more rational people and more efficient products, and, indeed, the dominant policy agenda for ‘sustainable consumption’ continues to promote this limited view of how change might come about. In this book, social practice theory is proposed as a conceptual framework for apprehending consumption. The hope is that a social practice approach can also serve to help identify opportunities for changes towards more sustainable forms of energy consumption in the home, as part of everyday practices and in relation to cooling.

Why the focus on air-conditioning? Air-conditioning is responsible for environmental damage caused by greenhouse gas emissions and ozone-depleting chemicals. Yet cooler living and working spaces provide a respite from the hot and humid climate experienced year-round in much of Southeast Asia. Air-conditioning is not the only way to keep cool, but it is certainly being embraced as the most desirable solution. There is practically no voice challenging trends towards the pervasiveness of air-conditioned spaces, either in the policy arena or among environmental or consumer activist groups. People who can afford it talk about their ‘love’ for artificially cool air and their ‘addiction’ to air-conditioning. As one person put it on a particularly hot day in Metro Manila, ‘I would crawl inside my aircon if I could.’

Some of Southeast Asia’s macro-trends in energy consumption related to cooling do not bode well for the global environment. Indeed, the general outlook appears bleak in relation to population growth, increases in affluence, urbanization and climate change – all of these factors will no doubt contribute to increased air-conditioning consumption. Yet current consumption practices are not homogeneous: how people go about keeping cool varies greatly, and not only in relation to levels of affluence and socio-economic factors. It is the diversity of consumption practices and their ever-changing nature, over space and time, which allow us to be optimistic about the potential for change. As we will see in the conclusion to this book, change may already be underway towards more sustainable forms of consumption.

1.2 Research study and sites

In 1970, when French cultural theorist Jean Baudrillard wrote his famous critique of consumer society – describing European air-conditioned commercial centers, where consumers flirt with endless possibilities of object acquisition and leisure activities – he probably did not imagine that one of the largest commercial centers in the world would be built in Metro Manila three decades later: SM Mall of Asia has 410,000 square meters of surface space and a 4.2 million person capacity, with 8,000 parking spaces for private vehicles and 100 spaces for buses. Malls throughout Southeast Asia have not only become family destinations for shopping, eating and socializing, but have replaced the notion of the town square as central hubs around which both leisure activities and businesses are consolidated. They are also destinations for experiencing cool air. In the Philippines, there is a verb for this activity: people say they are ‘going malling.’

More and more people seem to be experiencing artificially cool air in Southeast Asia, and, based on some of the trends outlined in the previous section, one can only expect this to increase. The focus of this book is on household air-conditioning in the region’s mega-cities. While this book considers macro-trends in cooling across Southeast Asia and places this in the context of energy consumption in the region, the fieldwork on which this study is based was conducted primarily in Metro Manila, the Philippines. From 2006 to 2009, several visits to the Philippines resulted in six months of fieldwork, including observations and interviews; from 2012 to 2013, one year was spent gathering additional data and writing this book.

In Metro Manila, household air-conditioning consumption was studied among different socio-economic groups, from a low-income housing community next to the former landfill, Smokey Mountain; to the relatively new housing developments and condominiums of the rising middle classes; to the gated communities and luxury apartments of the most affluent. The most important subjects were everyday people, met through acquaintances and serendipitously, who were willing to open up their homes and talk about how they keep cool. A total of 64 in-depth interviews took place, based almost entirely in the Philippines. In addition to household members, interviews also took place with air-conditioning manufacturers, engineers, architects, energy specialists and elected officials, among others. In 2013, a survey about keeping cool was also conducted among 155 Metro Manila respondents, made available online and biased towards English-speaking respondents who use the Internet. The survey was used to assess the frequency of certain qualitative findings, such as the percentage of people who prefer cool air for sleeping at night.

While most of the examples in this book are based on the context of Metro Manila, these reflections are compared with other mega-cities in the region. As limited time and resources did not permit in-depth research in several sites, this study relied on interviews with people based in the main cities of Thailand, Singapore and Indonesia, who provided precious anecdotal input on residential cooling. These four member countries of the geopolitical and economic organization Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) are considered in this research, and are briefly introduced here: Indonesia and its main city, Jakarta; the Philippines and the national capital region of Metro Manila; the city state of Singapore; and Thailand with its capital city, Bangkok.

The Republic of Indonesia

Indonesia is the world’s 16th largest country in terms of land area, consisting of 17,508 islands scattered over both sides of the equator, of which approximately 6,000 are inhabited. The largest are Java, Sumatra, Borneo (shared with Brunei and Malaysia), New Guinea (shared with Papua New Guinea) and Sulawesi. The country has 34 provinces and a population of over 238 million people, according to a 2010 national census, making it the world’s fourth most populous country. High population growth is rated at 1.9 percent per annum. A majority of the population lives on Java, the world’s most populous island. Although not an Islamic state, Indonesia is principally a Muslim nation: over 87 percent of Indonesians are Muslim.

Yet Indonesia is also home to around 300 ethnic groups, and 742 different languages and dialects. Indonesia’s official national motto in old Javanese, Bhinneka Tunggal Ika (‘Unity in Diversity’), articulates the national interest in building on this diversity. The archipelago has experienced influences from ‘elsewhere’ since at least the seventh century, when the region was part of an important trade route. Following three and a half centuries of Dutch colonialism, Indonesia secured its independence in 1945. Suharto was the second president of Indonesia, considered by many to be a brutal dictator, holding office for 31 years from 1967 until his resignation in 1998, during the Asian financial crisis. Indonesia was the country hardest hit by this crisis, from 1997 to 1998, when large capital outflows led to the free fall of the national currency. With a large population in densely populated areas, Indonesia also boasts a rich biodiversity and abundant natural resources. Despite this, poverty remains widespread. As of 2011, an estimated 12.5 percent of the population lived below the poverty line and the official unemployment rate was 6.7 percent. Indonesia had a Gini coefficient⁶ of 0.356 in 2006. The country is the largest economy in Southeast Asia. In 2012, gross domestic product (GDP) grew by over 6 percent.

As of November 2011, over 10 million people lived in Jakarta, the nation’s capital, also known as the Special Capital Region of Jakarta or the Big Durian – a play on New York City’s title of the Big Apple. Durian is a strong-smelling tropical fruit that people tend to either love or hate, and perhaps the same could be said of Jakarta, a city filled with all kinds of dining and shopping experiences, but crippled by heavy traffic, flooding in rainy seasons, and a lack of parks and other outdoor spaces – as is also the case in Metro Manila. The official metropolitan area, known as Jabodetabek, a name formed by combining the initial syllables of Jakarta, Bogor, Depok, Tangerang and Bekasi, is one of the largest in the world, grouping a population of over 28 million. Established in the fourth century, the original town was on an important trading route and was to become the capital of the Dutch East Indies. Today, Jakarta’s economy is driven by financial services, trade and manufacturing sectors. Most of the city’s landmarks, monuments and statues were built during the era of Sukarno (first president of Indonesia, from 1945 to 1967) in the 1960s and completed during the Suharto era, building on the colonial Dutch East Indies heritage.

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Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Illustrations
• Glossary of Tagalog
• Series Editor’s Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Maps
• Prologue
• 1. Introduction
• 2. Energy Consumption and Cooling in Southeast Asia
• 3. Cooling Histories, Habits and Variations
• 4. Cooling Our Colliding Practices
• 5. When ‘West Is Best’ for Housing
• 6. Opportunities for Change through Social Learning
• 7. Conclusion: ‘The Future Is Already Here’
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index