Southeast Asia’s haze crisis will persist until polluters pay

Across Southeast Asia, the haze has returned with a familiar cruelty. Malaysia has closed schools as air quality deteriorated, Singapore has experienced dangerous levels of air pollution, and even parts of the Philippines have been affected, underscoring how far the smoke has travelled. In Indonesia, meanwhile, forest and peatland fires, a major source of the region’s haze, have threatened communities and livelihoods, particularly in parts of Kalimantan. What begins as land burning in one country can become a public health emergency across an entire region.

The immediate response is predictable: extinguish fires, distribute masks and seek regional cooperation. All are necessary, but none explains why the emergency keeps returning. Malaysian children missing school, Singaporean residents breathing polluted air, Filipino communities exposed to drifting smoke and Indonesian families living near burning land all bear different costs from the same regional failure.

Dry weather and El Nino can intensify fires, but many are deliberately started to clear land for agriculture. The deeper question is why practices that create enormous public losses can remain attractive to those who benefit from them. When the gains from cheap land preparation are concentrated while the costs of smoke are dispersed across communities and national borders, the market signal is distorted and political responsibility becomes easier to evade.

The haze is therefore not merely an environmental emergency or a test of diplomatic goodwill. It disrupts ordinary life, strains public services and exposes how easily environmental costs can be shifted away from those who create them. It is a failure of economic accountability. Unless Southeast Asia changes who pays for the damage, how land-clearing decisions are monitored and what consequences follow proven violations, each dry season will bring another round of emergency measures followed by familiar arguments over blame.

The economics of cheap land clearing

Fire can be an inexpensive way to clear vegetation, especially where land governance is weak, alternative methods are costly and enforcement is uncertain. The private calculation is straightforward: spend less on land preparation and capture the returns. The fires cause respiratory illness, lost working days, school closures and transport disruption, while also damaging ecosystems and releasing greenhouse gases. Those costs are rarely borne in full by those responsible for the burning.

The World Bank’s assessment of Indonesia’s 2015 fire crisis estimated losses of at least $16.1bn, equivalent to 1.9 percent of that year’s gross domestic product (GDP). Government figures put the area burned between June and October at 2.6 million hectares. The bank linked the fires to cheap land preparation, drought and weak enforcement. Its estimate covered agriculture, trade, tourism, transport, healthcare and emergency response, but excluded some long-term health damage and lost ecosystem services.

That figure is not a price tag for the 2026 fires. It shows the scale of losses a recurrent crisis can impose. More recent estimates put the area burned in Indonesia this year at between 637,000 and 900,000 hectares, while Ministry of Health data recorded 283,270 cases of respiratory illness linked to the fires in seven provinces as of October 13. In West Kalimantan province, fires have also threatened communities and livelihoods, underscoring that Indonesians living beside the flames bear costs long before smoke reaches neighbouring countries.

This is the central economic distortion: the cost of burning is not fully reflected in the decision to burn. When benefits accrue privately, but health costs, lost income and ecological damage are borne by society, fire can remain economically attractive even when its total cost is enormous. Small farmers need affordable, practical alternatives to burning; companies must face credible liability when evidence links them to fires; and peatlands need sustained restoration and water management, not emergency attention only when smoke becomes politically embarrassing.

ASEAN’s accountability gap

Smoke travels across borders, but responsibility and enforcement remain largely national. Tracing pollution to a particular fire, identifying those responsible and proving cross-border harm can be difficult. A satellite hotspot is a warning signal, but not by itself proof of who started a fire or whether a company is liable.

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) is not without rules. Its Agreement on Transboundary Haze Pollution was signed in 2002 and entered into force in 2003; Indonesia ratified it in 2014. The region also has a Haze-Free Roadmap and a strategy for sustainable peatland management for 2023-30. But agreements cannot substitute consistent implementation, transparent enforcement or incentives that make prevention economically rational.

The challenge is translating these commitments into effective action. Cooperation can improve monitoring and preparedness, but ASEAN’s consensus-based diplomacy has limited leverage when national enforcement is inconsistent or commercial interests resist scrutiny. Its investment framework for haze-free land management aims to mobilise $1.5bn by 2030. Yet money alone will not suffice without transparent spending, measurable outcomes and accountability for repeated fires.

This does not mean every fire is caused by a large corporation or that all pollution in Kuala Lumpur or Singapore originates in Indonesia. Local emissions and weather conditions matter, and fires may involve companies, smallholders or other actors. Accountability requires investigations that identify those responsible and distinguish proven violations from suspicion. Blanket blame lets offenders disappear into arguments about sovereignty, while a lack of transparent evidence erodes trust between neighbours.

Making polluters bear the cost

ASEAN foreign ministers are due to discuss the haze crisis at preparatory meetings before the bloc’s November summit in Manila. Their discussions should be judged by whether they shift the region from managing haze to preventing it.

First, member states should publish comparable data on burned areas, fire recurrence, concessions and enforcement outcomes. Satellite detections should be cross-checked with field investigations, and concession maps should be made available for scrutiny by communities and independent researchers. Greater transparency would make it harder to obscure responsibility through competing claims.

Second, governments should put the polluter-pays principle into practice. Where investigations establish responsibility, penalties and restoration orders should reflect the damage caused, while repeat violations should trigger stronger consequences. Environmental liability must be evidence-based and applied consistently, not used as a political weapon. Penalties must also be substantial enough to deter violations rather than simply become a cost of doing business.

Third, prevention must be economically viable. Smallholders need machinery, technical assistance, credit and access to markets to make alternatives to burning affordable. Peatland rewetting, firebreaks and community-based monitoring require predictable funding before the dry season, rather than ad hoc budgets after fires spread. ASEAN’s investment framework can help mobilise resources, but governments should disclose where funds go and assess their impact on reductions in fires and smoke exposure.

Finally, ASEAN should publish a regional scorecard tied to its 2030 haze-free goal. It should track not only hotspots and hectares burned, but also repeat fires, response times, enforcement, peatland restoration, school closures and population exposure to dangerous air. No regional mechanism can replace Indonesia’s responsibility to prevent fires on its territory. But sovereignty cannot mean that the costs of domestic land-use decisions are ignored once smoke crosses a border. The principle should be simple: those who profit from risky practices must not be allowed to transfer the bill to children missing school, workers losing wages, sick families or neighbouring states.

For more than two decades, ASEAN has had agreements, strategies and roadmaps. The haze’s return does not make these efforts worthless; it shows prevention remains inadequate. If leaders leave November’s meetings with another declaration but no transparent metrics, credible enforcement and funding for alternatives, the region will once again treat the symptoms while preserving the incentives that produce them. Economic accountability is not an add-on to haze policy. It is the condition for making that policy work.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.