1. Introduction
Sustainable supply of energy at affordable prices is vital to
ensure the human development. Nowadays, energy use in the
transportation sector represents an important issue in ASEAN countries.
Therefore, it is believed that the introduction of fuel economy
standards and labels is the key to save energy in this sector. However,
these standards and labels need to be complementary or at
least not undermine other energy and emissions-related policies
and programs of the ASEAN member countries. In this region, the
designed fuel economy standards most importantly lie in the form
of reduced fuel subsidies. These standards will be more helpful
and effective if the member countries try to link air pollution mitigation
efforts with fuel economy standards initiatives. In 1992,
the ASEAN Environmental Improvement Program (ASEAN-EIP) was
established and funded by the United States Agency for International
Development (USAID). The program approach was similar to
present concepts of cleaner production (CP) which addresses the
total production process and its upstream and downstream consequences.
This attempt aims to mitigate emission and create an
awareness to environment [1]. ASEAN is committed to pursuing
for a clean and green region with fully established mechanisms for
sustainable development to ensure the protection of regional environment,
resources and the high quality of people’s life. Emission
standards for new or in-use motor vehicles have been issued in
ASEAN countries as benchmark whereby compliance is enforced
by regulatory agencies within the respective governments [2].
However, emissions from uncontrolled vehicle in-use have detrimental
effects on air qualities, and thus the consumers have to
cover the costs related to health problems. Taking into account
the health costs, policy implementation on air pollution reduction
will create on economic development. In other words, the implementation
of this policy seem to be in the long run [3]. The ASEAN
can also assets a stronger voice to vehicle/engine manufacturers
to adopt government policies. For instance, the Thai auto market
has responded favourably to tax incentives provided by the
government for producing eco-cars. This has encouraged manufacturers
of low-emissions cars to produce in Thailand. Furthermore,
Indonesia plans to follow the footsteps of Thailand by offering
incentives for the production of fuel-efficient cars, and Malaysia’s
lead with national car program such as the proton [4]. Compared
with other regions, the United States and Europe have been successful
in implementing fuel economy and greenhouse gas emissions
standards. Moreover, in 1999 Japan has established fuel efficiency
standards for light duty vehicles (gasoline and diesel vehicles) followed
by Korea, Canada and China [5–11].
The association of Southeast Asian Nation (ASEAN) was
established on 8th August 1967. Currently it consists of ten members;
Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Brunei
Darussalam, Cambodia, Lao PDR, Myanmar and Vietnam. The map
of ASEAN is given in Fig. 1 [12]. The rapid economic growth in
ASEAN countries for the last two decades has raised the concern
of sustainable energy development. The region has enormous
renewable energy development, energy efficiency improvement,
sustainable transportation and utilization. Cooperation in energy
among the member countries are promising factors towards successful
sustainable energy development in the ASEAN countries
[13].
Energy use in the transportation sector is an important issue in
ASEAN countries especially in the increasing threat of global warming
and climate change. This has lead to focus on the relationship
between economic growth and environmental pollution [14]. As
shown in Fig. 2 [12], the road transport sector has an increasing
share of total energy consumption in ASEAN countries. As this trend
continues, the growing fuel consumption from the transport sector
will have a significant impact on national energy security.
Fig. 3 shows the import of petroleum products by some selected
ASEAN Economies [12]. Since 1994, the consumption of oil in the
ASEAN region exceeds the production as illustrated in Fig. 4 [15].
This will impose a pressure on the ability of ASEAN countries to
use their financial resources for national development as they are
needed for importing crude and processed oil.
In 2009, the Indonesian energy outlook recognizes that oil was
the largest single source of energy (48%) followed by natural gas
(26%), coal (24%) and renewable (2%) as shown in Fig. 5. Moreover,
it is expected that total fossil fuels consumption will increase by
a percentage 52% by 2025 [15]. In 2007, the largest consumer of
fossils fuel was the industrial sector which reaches 48% from total
national energy consumption followed by the transportation sector
(33%) as shown in Fig. 6 [15].