The current energy transition toward renewable energy and sustainability is a global consensus strongly supported by Singapore’s government (Tan 2022). Still, it is an endeavor comparable in its far-reaching impacts to the tremendous changes brought about by the Age of Coal and the Industrial Revolution. For Singapore and other countries, trialing and upscaling new energy sources is a challenge that inevitably is shaped by the previous energy transitions toward fossil fuels (coal, petroleum, natural gas) that gave birth to the present situation. In Singapore’s case, its history as a key coaling station and its recent past and current status as a petrochemical hub means that the transition is fraught with even more difficulties than other countries (Ng 2013). On top of the politico-technological path dependencies and lock-in effects, the nation’s energy transition faces obstacles due to its small size, dense urban area, minimal wind speeds, and lack of geothermal resources (Ministry of Sustainability and the Environment 2019). Such environmental-geographical factors further complicate long-term investments in infrastructure, changes in the built environment to accommodate new explosive or toxic fuels (hydrogen, ammonia), and the transition away from fossil fuels to mitigate climate change and related problems.

Our project’s investigation of the human-created carbon cycle and the related path dependencies and lock-in effects seeks to contribute to what has been described as the “Asian Anthropocene.” Amitav Ghosh, one of Asia’s best-known writers, drew attention to the lack of climate change narratives in both Asian histories and literatures, which was followed by academic studies that created new impulses in the scholarly debate about the origins of the Anthropocene and its respective local and regional impacts and speeds (Ghosh 2016; Chatterjee 2020; Huebner 2023). The Anthropocene is a proposed new geological epoch since the mid-twentieth century defined by human activities having reached a dimension that they began to modify biogeophysical and biogeochemical processes in the Earth system, like climate change (McNeill and Engelke 2014; Steffen et al. 2015; Thomas, Williams, and Zalasiewicz 2020). In order to think critically about the future trajectories of transiting out of carbon dependency in Asia, we first need to properly understand the historical pathways of Asia transiting into carbon dependency and the historical alternatives that in the process were politically and economically rejected, and/or socially  marginalized (Huebner 2020; Nemet 2019, 85-105).

In line with our larger grant application, this Seed Fund project seeks to address the following questions through interdisciplinary perspectives connecting Asian studies, STS (Science, Technology and Society), environmental/energy humanities, and digital humanities:

1. How have the specific socio-technical and techno-political configurations of Asia historically shaped the use—including production, circulation, and consumption—of fossil fuels in Asia? What intra-Asian commonalities and inter-Asia connections can we identify to contribute to narratives of the Asian Anthropocene?
2. Why did these historical patterns of energy use in Asia create certain spaces and infrastructures while excluding or marginalizing alternative configurations?  How did these choices and the corresponding built environment cause path dependencies and lock-in effects that constituted barriers and opportunities for past and present energy transitions?
3. By drawing on digitized historical data that will be generated, evaluated, and visualized, how have environmental conditions and political decisions resulted in local differences in speed and intensity of energy transitions? How did such differences shape the (unequal) relationship between Asian urban centers and their hinterlands?

PI & Co-PI(s): Chang Jiat Hwee & Stefan Huebner
Collaborator(s): Fathun Karib, Seohyun Park, Dorothy Tang & Kenneth Tay

Funding Agency: Humanities and Social Sciences Seed Fund (Collaborative Research)
Project Duration: 5 January 2024 – 4 July 2025