Environmental sustainability is a priority

Hello Globe readers,

Happy Friday, everyone. Don’t miss the last few hours of our mid-year sale, where you can get an annual membership for only half the price and gain access to all of our stories. A huge thank you from us all in advance.

This week, our features covered major trends in energy transition projects in Southeast Asia. In his first piece for the Globe, Coby Hobbs wrote about the challenges faced by the $30-billion Just Energy Transition Project (JETP) in supporting renewable energy infrastructure development in Vietnam and Indonesia.

In the meantime, the E.U.’s Regulation on deforestation-free products, which entered into force on 29 June, forbids the import of goods into Europe that originated from land cleared since 31 December, 2020. Malaysia and Indonesia, two of the E.U.’s major trade partners, sent a mission to Brussels arguing the legislation discriminated against their palm-oil-dependent economies and would harm their agricultural sectors.

As deserted lands cause environmental concerns, deserted streets could be equally dangerous for their human population. Urbanist Jane Jacobs popularised the concept of the lively street as an instrument of public safety in her book The Death and Life of Great American Cities. She stressed the idea that a lively street is one that has people who watch over it.

Last but not least, two Indonesian human rights advocates are now fighting defamation charges over a podcast aired almost two years ago. The incriminating episode was about a report claiming military involvement in West Papua was designed to protect mining interests in the area and the alleged conflict of interest of a government official as a shareholder of a mining company in Papua.

That’s all for today, may you have a wonderful weekend and enjoy the features!