Carbon Governance in Southeast Asia
About Us
Carbon Governance in Southeast Asia, or CGSEA, is an online platform for the exchange of interdisciplinary knowledge, ideas and developments relating to the research project on Climate Governance of Nature-based Carbon Sinks in Southeast Asia. The research project is funded by the Social Science Research Thematic Grant (SSRTG) from the Ministry of Education, Singapore, Social Science Research Thematic Grant (SSRTG) MOE2021-SSRTG-021.
The research project is hosted at the Asia Research Institute and builds upon the research on Sustainable Governance of the Transboundary Environmental Commons in Southeast Asia which was completed in June 2022.
Our Work
The Carbon Governance in Southeast Asia grant is an interdisciplinary coming together of scholars whose interests range across various disciplines in the natural and social sciences. As such, our teams collaborate on specific work packages that address a particular kind of carbon sink–terrestrial forests, coastal and freshwater ecosystems, and peatlands and agricultural soils, each headed by a Postdoctoral Research Fellow. Our last work package, systems, technologies and social relations, aims to compare, contrast and integrate findings from the empirical research of the other three to produce compelling, insight-rich social science research, and is headed by our Senior Research fellow. To learn more about each work package, please browse the links below:
Latest News
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Saritha Kittie Uda undertook fieldwork in Jakarta and Central Kalimantan, Indonesia, from 20 April-3 May 2026. Her study involved 24 interviews and four focus group discussions held across three villages and in Palangka Raya city. 
Yingshan Lau co-facilitated a Learning Journey on Carbon Project Development and MRV at Sungei Buloh Wetland Reserve, organised by the NUS Sustainability Academy as part of a Singapore Cooperation Enterprise capacity-building programme, on 21 April 2026. 
Yingshan Lau, Khamsing Keothoumma from the National University of Laos, Yunrui Ren and Sithong Thongmanivong co-authored a short article for ARIScope on ‘The case of the unsold carbon credits: Lessons from an early-REDD+ project in Southern Laos.’ To read the article, click here. 
Yingshan Lau presented a talk on “The importance of humanistic participatory MRV and carbon credit literacy” at a workshop on Carbon Credit Supply Chain, Value Added and Watershed Co-governance Strategies, organised by the Institute for Development Consultancy (CODE), in Hanoi, Vietnam, on 6 April 2026. 
Danny Marks’ co-authored article titled ‘Hidden Smoke: Air Pollution, Agrarian Change, and Governance Gaps in Luang Prabang, Laos’ has been published in Critical Asian Studies! To read the article, click here. 
Yustina Octifanny undertook fieldwork on peatland carbon projects in three villages across Central Kalimantan, Indonesia, from 25 August 2025-February 26 2026, concluding with community workshops where she shared her research findings and sought feedback from local communities. 
Michelle Miller and Jay Quevedo undertook fieldwork in Trang Province, Thailand, from 22-28 March 2026. 
Happy World Forest Day from the CGSEA team! 🌲 To learn more about CGSEA’s work on Terrestrial Forests, click here. 
PhD Candidate Yunrui Ren, based at the Department of Geography, National University of Singapore, and attached to the CGSEA grant, presented at the 2026 Annual Meetings of both the Association for Asian Studies and American Association of Geographers on 13 and 19 March respectively. 
Happy World Seagrass Day from the CGSEA team! 🌱 
Melissa Low authored an opinion piece for Channel News Asia titled ‘Commentary: Budget 2026 – less ambitious carbon tax comes with tradeoffs for Singapore.’ To read the full opinion piece, click here. 
Happy World Wetlands day from the CGSEA team! To learn more about CGSEA’s work on Coastal and Freshwater Ecosystems, click here. 
Helena Varkkey was an invited guest commenting on Global and Regional Cooperation on Air Quality for State of Global Air’s Science on the 7th interview series, where she shared her expertise on the causes and environmental effects, as well as the politics and regulation of, transboundary haze in Southeast Asia. 
CGSEA Research Fellow Yingshan Lau was interviewed by Mongabay for a feature on her lead-authored review paper on ‘Challenges in Forest Carbon Governance: Insights From Southeast Asia’, co-authored with other researchers from the project’s team working on Terrestrial Forests. To read the full feature, click here. 
Michelle Miller and Jay Quevedo undertook fieldwork in Krabi Province, Thailand, from 23-30 November 2025. 
Dixon Gevaña was invited to give a plenary talk on ‘Mangrove conservation promoting sustainable ecotourism and local livelihoods’ at the 3rd International Conference on Biodiversity and Sustainable Development 2025. 
Helena Varkkey was invited to speak on ‘Knowledge Co-Creation with Peatland Communities for Improved Peatland Governance’ for a hybrid seminar organised by the Institute for Southeast Asian Studies (ISEAS). In addition to delivering her talk, Varkkey also launched a policy brief on community-centred actions for improved peatland governance and the implementation of nature-based solutions (NbS), which she led the writing of.
Upcoming Events
Stakeholder Workshop on Nature-based Carbon Governance in Southeast Asia: A Collaborative Approach to Policy Brief Development, ARI, NUS, 3-4 December 2026 (convened in a hybrid format).
We’re excited to announce that CGSEA will be hosting a Stakeholder Workshop on Nature-based Carbon Governance in Southeast Asia: A Collaborative Approach to Policy Brief Development at Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore, on 3-4 December 2026.
This workshop will bring together CGSEA researchers with relevant stakeholders from NGOs, industry and government to co-develop three policy briefs aligned with the project’s thematic work packages on: (a) terrestrial forests; (b) coastal and freshwater ecosystems; and (c) peatlands and agricultural soils.
The workshop will culminate in the finalization of key points and terminology for the policy briefs, which will be translated into the national languages of targeted Southeast Asian countries. To facilitate the dissemination of the briefs, and the uptake of recommended interventions, CGSEA team members will coordinate outreach workshops, in-country meetings and stakeholder dialogues in the second and third quarters of 2027.
Carbon Governance in Southeast Asia (CGSEA) 