Three countries, three instruments
Southeast Asia is running a natural experiment in carbon pricing, and the three largest experiments could hardly differ more in design. Singapore chose a tax: a fixed price per tonne, set by law years in advance. Vietnam chose an emissions trading system in pilot form: a cap, allocated allowances, and a market discovered price on a stock exchange. Indonesia chose a trading system too, but aimed at a single sector first: its coal fired power fleet, the backbone of its grid. Comparing them on price alone misses the point. A real carbon price is a price that covers meaningful emissions, is known in advance or discovered in a functioning market, and is hard to escape. On those three tests, the regional ranking looks different from the headline numbers.
Singapore: the tax with a timetable
Singapore was the first country in Southeast Asia to price carbon, introducing its tax in 2019 at S$5 per tonne. The rate rose to S$25 for 2024 and 2025, stands at S$45 per tonne for 2026 and 2027, and is scheduled to reach S$50 to S$80 by 2030. At roughly S$1.29 to USD 1, the current rate is about USD 35 per tonne, an order of magnitude above anything traded in Hanoi or Jakarta. The design’s strength is certainty. The tax applies to facilities emitting at least 25,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent a year, about 30 to 40 large industrial sites in refining, petrochemicals, energy and manufacturing, covering roughly 80 percent of national emissions. Companies may offset up to 5 percent of taxable emissions with eligible international carbon credits, a pressure valve that also builds a credit market. A factory in Singapore can model its carbon cost in 2030 today, to the dollar. That is what investors mean by a real price: not the highest number, but the most predictable liability.
Vietnam: the pilot with a deadline
Vietnam’s system is younger and deliberately tentative. Its exchange on the Hanoi Stock Exchange opened in June 2026, and early trades printed at VND 130,000 to VND 136,000 per tonne, about USD 5. Coverage begins with 110 facilities in thermal power, steel and cement, which have been allocated quotas for 2025 to 2026, inside a registered quota pool of more than 510 million tonnes. Trading is negotiated rather than continuous, volumes so far are tiny, and the first surrender of allowances falls in 2027, with the pilot running to 2028 and auctions plus wider coverage planned from 2029. Vietnam’s price is therefore real but soft: a genuine market signal wrapped in generous early allocation. Its defenders would note two things. First, the sectors covered are the traded, export exposed industries where carbon costs bite through mechanisms like CBAM regardless of the domestic price. Second, a pilot that companies actually use may beat a bold design that collapses politically. The 2027 surrender will be the first honest test of whether Vietnamese allowances are a compliance instrument or a rehearsal.
Indonesia: the sector cap that paused
Indonesia’s emissions trading began in February 2023 with 99 grid connected coal power plants totalling 33.6 GW, plants of at least 100 MW selling surplus allowances to plants over their quota. Its carbon exchange, IDXCarbon, followed in September 2023, opening with trades of about 460,000 tonnes of geothermal credits at 69,600 rupiah per tonne, roughly USD 4 at IDR 16,000 to USD 1. Coverage then expanded fast on paper, from 146 installations in 2024 to 563 in 2025 as captive coal and gas plants were added. But international carbon market trackers note that 2025 allowance allocation was postponed amid regulatory revision, with reporting obligations continuing while trading waited. Indonesia thus presents the region’s most instructive contrast: the broadest power sector coverage and one of its weakest current price signals, with forestry and nature based credits, its greatest natural asset, still being organised under a 2025 presidential regulation on carbon pricing. Scale without allocation discipline produces a market in name only.
The rest of the field
Beyond the big three, the honest entry is: no mandatory national carbon price in force. Malaysia runs a voluntary exchange, Bursa Carbon Exchange, and has debated a carbon tax for energy and heavy industry without yet setting a rate. Thailand has relied on voluntary credit trading and a pilot trading scheme rather than a binding cap or tax. The Philippines has discussed carbon pricing legislation for years without enactment. For multinational supply chains, this patchwork is itself the finding. A component crossing three ASEAN borders in 2026 can face a USD 35 tax in Singapore, a USD 5 market price in Vietnam, a paused sector scheme in Indonesia, and no price at all elsewhere in the chain.
The verdict
Who has a real carbon price in Southeast Asia? Singapore, unambiguously: high, scheduled, broad and collectable. Vietnam has a real market with a soft price and a hard deadline approaching in 2027, which is more than it sounds, because deadlines are what convert pilots into prices. Indonesia has real architecture and real coverage whose price signal is currently suspended by its own regulatory reset. The deeper pattern matters for the whole region. Carbon pricing in Southeast Asia is being built for different masters: Singapore prices for domestic decarbonisation, Vietnam increasingly prices because its exporters’ customers demand it, and Indonesia prices, when it resumes, to discipline the coal fleet its economy still runs on. The numbers, USD 35 against USD 5 against USD 4, will converge only when those purposes do.
Related reading
- Seven Trades and 1,310 Allowances: Vietnam’s Carbon Exchange Finds Its First Price
- What a Tonne of CO2 Costs Around the World in 2026
- ASEAN’s Carbon Club: Linking Exchanges Before Linking Grids?
Sources
Singapore National Environment Agency and National Climate Change Secretariat carbon tax schedule, 2026, on the S$45 rate for 2026 and 2027, the 25,000 tonne threshold and the path to S$50 to S$80 by 2030. International Carbon Action Partnership country profile for Indonesia, 2026, on ETS expansion to 563 installations in 2025, IDXCarbon participation and the postponed 2025 allowance allocation. Ministry of Agriculture and Environment briefing, 16 September 2026, and Hanoi Stock Exchange launch reporting, June 2026, on Vietnam’s pilot ETS coverage, quota pool and first traded prices.
