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September 3, 2026

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Asia

Malaysia wants tougher ASEAN action on haze, but bloc faces familiar obstacles

More than two decades after ASEAN adopted its transboundary haze agreement, experts say its 2030 haze-free goal could be hard to achieve without stronger enforcement and accountability.

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JOHOR BAHRU: As smoke from fires in Indonesia once again blankets parts of Southeast Asia, Malaysia has urged ASEAN to revisit the regional pact meant to tackle transboundary haze.

Malaysia has been among the countries in the bloc hardest hit by the annual challenge of transboundary haze in recent weeks.

Parts of Sarawak on the island of Borneo and the Klang Valley in West Malaysia are directly in the path of smoke from hotspots in Indonesia’s Kalimantan and Sumatra.

Air quality has reached unhealthy levels in some areas, while authorities have warned that worsening conditions in Sarawak could trigger emergency measures.

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Heavy haze blanketing Kuala Lumpur’s skyline as viewed from the DUKE Highway on Aug 21, 2026. (Photo: CNA/Fadza Ishak)

The deteriorating situation has prompted Malaysian leaders to call for a review of parts of the ASEAN Agreement on Transboundary Haze Pollution (AATHP), which entered into force in 2003.

The agreement is built around the bloc’s longstanding principles of consensus, sovereignty and non-interference. It has no ASEAN-level fines or sanctions for non-compliance, while disputes are to be settled through consultation or negotiation.

But more than two decades after the pact took effect, experts said that strengthening it will be an uphill task.

James Chin, professor of Asian Studies at the University of Tasmania, told CNA that significant changes to the pact may garner support, but would require major players such as Indonesia to “play ball”.

“Malaysia is pushing for (legislation change), and this is likely supported by Singapore – but the bottom line is (whether) Indonesia wants to do it,” said Chin, who is also a senior research associate at the Tun Tan Cheng Lock Institute of Social Studies in Malaysia.

“If things continue like it is presently, nothing much will change because ASEAN is dependent on consensus,” he added.

Breaking the cycle will therefore require not just changes on paper but stronger political will and accountability, experts said, including stronger cross-border cooperation, evidence-sharing and domestic enforcement.

Transboundary haze has repeatedly plagued Southeast Asia over the decades, with particularly severe episodes in 1997-98, 2013 and 2015, as well as significant outbreaks in 2019 and this year. Some of the worst episodes have coincided with El Nino-driven dry conditions that exacerbate forest and peatland fires.

The consequences have been far-reaching: millions exposed to unhealthy air, schools shut, businesses and travel disrupted, and billions of dollars in economic losses.

Besides Malaysia, the Philippines is also experiencing worsening air quality, including in Metro Manila. Last month, Singapore’s National Environment Agency warned that an escalation in hotspot activity in Indonesia could lead to “occasional periods of haze affecting Singapore”.

In Sarawak, governor Wan Junaidi Tuanku Jaafar was quoted by Malaysian media as saying there was a possibility that the Air Pollutant Index in parts of the state could hit 800, forcing schools and some businesses to close.

An API level of above 500 could trigger a state of emergency, halting non-essential government and commercial operations.

Wan Junaidi reportedly said the AATHP remained relevant, but stronger mechanisms, new technologies and faster decision-making were needed to make regional cooperation more effective.

Deputy Natural Resources and Environmental Sustainability Minister Syed Ibrahim Syed Noh was also quoted as saying that mechanisms under the AATHP must evolve to meet changing challenges, with enforcement among the issues that should be discussed alongside ways to prevent, detect and respond to haze.

“This is not about pointing fingers. Haze does not recognise national borders and neither should our commitment to finding solutions,” he reportedly told local news outlet the New Straits Times.

On Tuesday (Sep 1), Indonesian ambassador to Malaysia Raden Mohammad Iman Hascarya Kusumo said that Jakarta supports further strengthening the AATHP.

“Indonesia remains committed to the AATHP and considers it an important framework for regional cooperation,” he was quoted as saying by the New Straits Times.

“Indonesia believes regional mechanisms should continue to be strengthened in terms of implementation, particularly in early warning and monitoring, real-time information and data sharing, coordination of firefighting operations, weather modification and capacity-building among ASEAN member states.”

ASEAN’s Second Haze-Free Roadmap 2023-2030 sets out a vision of a transboundary haze-free region by the end of the decade.

The roadmap, which spells out that haze-free doesn’t mean zero fires or zero haze, seeks to prevent and control large-scale land, forest, peatland and agricultural fires that result in significant transboundary haze.

At the heart of the problem, analysts said, is a longstanding dilemma between ASEAN’s principles of consensus and non-interference and measures that could hold member states more directly accountable.

“The goal of a haze-free ASEAN in 2030 is not realistic and is a bad look for ASEAN as they have spent a lot time and effort to make progress on this issue but they (have little to show for their efforts),” said Chin.

Regional leaders hold hands for a group photo during the opening ceremony of the 48th ASEAN summit and related meeting in Cebu, Philippines on Friday, May 8, 2026. (Photo: AP/Aaron Favila, Pool)

CROSS-BORDER ENFORCEMENT REMAINS THE MISSING LINK

Experts added that one way to deter haze is to hold companies responsible for fires legally accountable.

Indonesia has punished companies over fires under its domestic laws. But no company has been successfully prosecuted by another ASEAN country specifically for causing haze across an international border.

Singapore has gone furthest in trying to close that gap.

Its Transboundary Haze Pollution Act (THPA), enacted in 2014, applies to conduct inside or outside Singapore that causes or contributes to haze pollution in the country, with aggregate fines of up to S$2 million (US$1.6 million) for certain offences.

The law also creates civil liability, allowing people or entities in Singapore who suffer certain losses from haze pollution to pursue those responsible.

Yet there have been no publicly confirmed prosecutions or convictions under the law.

Following the severe 2015 haze episode, Singapore’s National Environment Agency issued legal notices to six Indonesian companies after identifying fires on land associated with them.

A view of the haze in Singapore on Aug 25, 2026, as seen from The Pinnacle@Duxton. (Photo: CNA/Alyssa Tan)

Six years later, in response to a parliamentary question in 2021, the Singapore government said investigations involving two companies had been closed after considering information they provided, while investigations involving four others remained open.

There have been no subsequent public updates on the outcome of those four investigations.

Experts told CNA that Singapore’s experience illustrates a fundamental obstacle to cross-border enforcement.

An affected country may have satellite data and evidence of pollution within its borders, but crucial information about concession boundaries, land ownership, corporate responsibility and the origins of individual fires may lie in another jurisdiction.

Sharon Seah, principal fellow at ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute, said the enforcement challenge stems partly from the AATHP being constructed around “soft laws”.

“It is a treaty designed to elicit cooperation but only cooperation that is sought for. If the recipient state refuses to trigger the AATHP, there is nothing that other concerned states can do to assist,” said Seah, adding that the pact is designed to ensure that no country’s sovereignty is infringed upon.

“It is pointless to blame the agreement if it is designed in the first place to respect consensus and non-interference,” added Seah, who is also coordinator of ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute’s Climate Change in Southeast Asia programme.

A volunteer sprays water in an attempt to extinguish a wildfire burning through a peatland field in Ogan Ilir, South Sumatra, Indonesia, on Monday, Aug 24, 2026. (Photo: AP/Muhammad Hatta)

Chin similarly said effective cross-border enforcement depends heavily on Indonesia’s willingness and ability to cooperate.

“One aspect is that Indonesia doesn’t have the resources to deal with the enforcement,” said Chin, noting that some of the fires could be in rural plantations across vast expanses in Kalimantan and Sumatra.

On extraterritorial laws such as Singapore’s THPA, Seah said their effectiveness ultimately depends on cooperation from domestic enforcement authorities in the country where the fires occur.

“This is a governance problem in which many interests overlap – development priorities, decentralised permitting, patronage ties between commodity businesses and political elites and ambiguous land-use classification and maps,” said Seah, who previously worked in Singapore’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and National Environment Agency.

Chin said Singapore’s approach offers one model that Malaysia and other affected ASEAN countries could consider.

But such laws would still depend on cooperation from Indonesian authorities, including access to reliable and transparent data needed to establish responsibility, he added.

Analysts CNA spoke to said that Malaysia’s proposed review of the AATHP therefore raises a larger question: How far are ASEAN members prepared to move beyond voluntary cooperation towards stronger accountability without undermining the principles of sovereignty and consensus on which the grouping operates?

Malaysian social activist Lee Lam Thye, director of non-profit group Alliance for a Safe Community, said last week that growing frustration over recurring haze should push ASEAN towards more tangible action.

He called for greater accountability when fires result in transboundary pollution, including more open sharing of investigations and evidence between affected countries.

“After more than 20 years, ASEAN must move beyond promises and demonstrate that regional cooperation can actually protect the people of Southeast Asia,” said Lee.

WHAT’S NEXT FOR ASEAN?

Enforcement, however, is only one part of the equation.

Experts said ASEAN countries also need to intervene earlier – before fires develop into a cross-border pollution crisis.

Fredolin Tangang of Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia told CNA that this year’s haze was foreseeable, given that El Nino conditions had been forecast six to nine months in advance, but said there had been insufficient concrete preventive action.

“Hotspot monitoring should be followed by immediate action on the ground. Cooperation between countries should also be mobilised before smoke crosses national borders, not only after haze has become a regional crisis,” he said.

One potential avenue for stronger cooperation is the ASEAN Coordinating Centre for Transboundary Haze Pollution Control (ACC THPC), which is intended to become the bloc’s permanent hub for coordinating responses to land and forest fires and the haze they produce.

But the centre is not yet fully operational.

ASEAN states signed its Establishment Agreement in May 2025, but sufficient national ratifications are still needed for it to enter into force. As of ASEAN’s June 2026 update, member states were still working towards its full operationalisation in Indonesia.

Tangang said the centre could work with the ASEAN Specialised Meteorological Centre in Singapore to “boost real-time satellite monitoring, rapid sharing of hotspot information and synergise joint firefighting capabilities”.

Motorcyclists ride on a haze-shrouded road caused by forest and land fires in Palangkaraya city, Central Kalimantan, on Aug 28, 2026.
(Photo: AFP/Reina)

Indonesian ambassador Raden Mohmammad was also quoted by the New Straits Times as saying on Tuesday that Indonesia would continue to advocate the full operationalisation of the coordinating centre.

But Seah said ultimately the region must tackle the conditions that allow the fires to happen in the first place.

A major part of that involves protecting peatlands, where fires can burn deep underground, spread over large areas and produce vast amounts of smoke.

Prevention includes keeping peatlands wet and restoring those that have been drained or degraded.

“This is an issue of prevention against fires, mostly against fires on peatlands which can spread deep and wide,” Seah said.

“So if we treat the symptom, i.e. put out the fires, but we don’t treat the cause i.e. conserving the peat store and thinking about the land-use properly, this problem will continue recurring.”

As for ASEAN’s ambition of a haze-free region by 2030, Seah described it as a “stretch goal”.

“Without coordinated action to tackle the governance issues relating to conservation of biodiversity, particularly of peatlands in Indonesia and Malaysia, this problem will continue to recur,” she said.