Cambodia's High-Income Future with Clean Energy
A Vision of Progress – Can Cambodia's Energy Future Keep Pace with Its Rapid Growth?
Prime Minister Hun Manet is two years into his tenure, and he will have challenges to confront. His predecessor led the nation out of genocide, and brought it extraordinary development. During his decades of leadership, he brought the peace and stability needed for civil society to sprout from the ashes of civil conflict. Stability led to steady economic expansion: between 1995 and 2019 Cambodia's annual growth averaged 7.6% with textiles and tourism, agriculture and construction as the primary drivers. China saw its potential long ago and has massively invested in infrastructure, funding every hydropower dam, among other civil projects. The new administration looks to continue the progress of the previous, and lead Cambodia to the Vision 2050 goal of High-Income Nation status. 2050 is also a significant year for Cambodia's Climate Change indicators within the framework of the Paris Climate Agreement.
Cambodia's Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), created in compliance with the Paris Agreement 2015, necessitate reaching net-zero Carbon Emissions with 60% of its Forest Cover, by 2050. Cambodia's current forest cover stands at 43%, increasing it to 60% is an important component of achieving carbon neutrality. The forests act as carbon sinks, meaning they naturally remove carbon from the atmosphere. This amount of carbon sinking removes 50 Megatons of Carbon Dioxide Equivalent per year. If the carbon isn't sequestered in the trees of the forest, it's released into the atmosphere by logging and forest fires, which drastically increase the temperature of the surface of the earth. See map below by NASA.GOV
NASA Forest fires recorded in the last 30 days. Feb 21 - March 21. Every red dot represents a fire.
The World Bank presents a sober analysis for 108 nations stuck in the middle-income trap, the situation of being unable to break into the ranks of high-income nation status. In their 2024 World Development Report on the Middle-Income Trap, they detail the problem and how to get out of it. It describes the 'Three Is' of development: Investment, Infusion, and Innovation. Transitioning from Investment to Infusion entails attracting foreign businesses to bring technical know-how, and transfer technical skills to the workforce. After the country has built up sufficient domestic infrastructure and human capital, the nation will be able to pivot to Innovation, and make themselves competitive on the global stage. Countries that don't do this will stay middle-income manufacturing hubs for the high-income nations.
These nations won't be able to get past the point of stagnation that occurs at $7-8K per capita without innovation. This looming problem is farther away for Cambodia, which will near $3,000 per capita in 2025. However, it will have to be solved to achieve Vision 2050.
India is in the middle-income trap. India will take another 75 years to reach one quarter of the American per capita income. Notable reasons attributed for this include the lack of political inclusivity and institutions, and social mobility. Elitism and majoritarianism are not conducive to prosperity. Protectionist policies that prevent corporations from being tested in international markets deprive them of useful stress tests. Limited social mobility leads to alienation of the disenfranchised, and ossification. This will not support societal stability, let alone growth.
20th Century technologies will leave Cambodia in the 20th Century. 'Infuse' now with the most advanced and promising technologies to prepare Cambodia for the 22nd century. Cambodian engineers will be among those innovating for posterity. The 35-year-old engineers of 2050 are currently 10-year-old students. Will only the children of the rich have opportunities to participate in the nation's bright future? Will all Cambodian students have the opportunity to work in emerging industries the world over, and return home with expertise, as the Koreans allowed? Will they have the chance to rise in society proportional to their industriousness, or will the best jobs and upper ranks be limited to the children of the current tycoons?
The World Bank encourages countries to treat crises as opportunities. Climate change is an ongoing catastrophe that will make or break nations. The Tropic Belt countries are among the most susceptible. The overarching difficulty is to concurrently remedy the challenges of ecological collapse and economic impoverishment. While most people consider them irreconcilable, Innovation will address both of these issues.
Nuclear Power is the shockingly simple ('simple') solution to a range of seemingly disconnected problems, now revealed to be opportunities. Nuclear Power generates limitless electricity of course, but also: fertilizers, animal feed, desalinization, fuels for cars, planes, trains, and other automobiles, clean concrete, Direct Air Capture and more promisingly, Direct Ocean Capture are some of the many products and methods that become more accessible with Nuclear Power.
Direct Ocean Capture is the single most effective method at removing Legacy Carbon (carbon previously released) from the environment. It simultaneously fights Ocean Acidification, the 'Evil Twin' of Climate Change that's currently decimating coral reefs and shellfish populations. By extension, food webs are collapsing.
With forward thinking and decisive leadership, Cambodia can secure the next 40-70 years of its energy supply while maintaining the forests and not sacrificing the environment. Nuclear Power will be a big investment, but the avenues exist to effectively execute this.
Russia has made agreements with 57 nations, specifically relating to Nuclear Power. China has Nuclear Power well established, and as the sole investor in hydropower dams, it would be a basic policy shift to redirect their time, expertise, and capital to Reactors. They're experimenting with Thorium Reactor designs, building one of commercial capacity in the Gobi Desert, that should be operational by 2030.
While Washington isn't currently sympathetic to green technology, this is temporary. Silicon Valley understands technology, at the least, and is massively investing in avant-garde energy solutions. Bill Gate's TerraPower started construction on a Salt-Cooled Reactor in Wyoming just last year. Meta and Microsoft are actively invested in Nuclear Power; AI takes a lot of electricity. Amazon is investing in Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) and is exploring Nuclear Fusion, trying to get ahead on the energy source of the 22nd Century (IAEA Fusion FAQs). All serious solutions for Climate Change and long-term energy supply involve Nuclear Power.
France is the longtime leader of Nuclear Power, and is actively modernizing their aging system. Cambodia would find France an ideal partner to invest and share skills. Small Modular Reactors and Molten Salt Reactors are newer technologies well adapted for Cambodia, and now is the time to be on the forefront of implementing these.
Cambodia lacks strategic energy policy that considers the various difficulties it will face over the next century. There's little margin to waver or time to ponder; actions must now be taken to avoid the current direction of economic and ecological collapse. Energy independence brings a nation autonomy, and it can progress to being an energy exporter enjoying soft power. Earnings from this soft power could become hard power.
The World Bank observes that crises may be opportunities for a middle-income country to stress test its corporations, reform where needed and not just survive, but profit from the difficulties. Climate Change is an ongoing disaster affecting us all, but none more than residents of the Tropical Belt.
With clean, cheap electricity available, so many other doors open. Not only will a nation be able to prevent emissions into the future, they'll be able to use techniques like Carbon Sequestration, Direct Ocean Capture or Direct Air Capture, to remove Legacy Carbon and undo the damage of the previous Industrial Revolutions.
Cambodia is wary of over reliance on any one nation. That's sound geopolitical strategy, and yet more important in times of global tension. To avoid becoming a vassal or proxy, and maintain its constitutionally enshrined non-alignment and territorial integrity, Cambodia needs energy independence. Negotiating from a place of strength is the only way to effectively negotiate. To avoid the looming middle-income trap, it requires innovation. To make any economic progress without destroying its remaining forests and waterways, decisive leadership will be needed to direct the translation of policy into action.
'If we reform, we survive; if we don't, we perish,' the Prime Minister stated plainly in mid-March.
Hun Sen the Sage led the recovery, let Hun Manet the Visionary lead the economic renaissance.
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