Smoky, grey skies obscuring a weak, red sun. The haze is back, with an episode on a scale not seen since 2019, affecting both Peninsular Malaysia and Sarawak. This air pollution problem, both toxic and costly, has haunted Malaysia for more than three decades.
We may wonder why the haze is particularly severe this year. But its recurrent nature over many years may also breed familiarity, and lead us to accept the haze as just a normal seasonal occurrence. In this perspective, there is little we can do, and once the worst of the haze disappears, it can be forgotten about – until the next time.
How can we maintain year-round, persistent attention on addressing the causes of the haze to achieve a lasting haze-free future?
Recognising the strong connection between haze and climate change can be crucial.
And importantly, this connection points towards a broader opportunity: interventions that reduce haze can also tackle climate change and protect ecosystems, while improving health and our economy.
There are two sides to the haze-climate connection.
The first side is that climate is a key factor exacerbating haze. Hot, dry conditions increase the risk of the fires, mostly in Indonesia, that create the smoke drifting into our skies.
One factor in 2026 being a major haze year is the current record-breaking “El Nino” – the name given to the warming phase of a naturally occurring climate fluctuation in the Pacific Ocean – that strengthens Indonesia’s hot, dry season.
Climate change, driven by global emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, is an additional and growing force that increases the risk of fire-friendly climate conditions.
Under current policy conditions, recurring haze is therefore a predictable – and possibly increasing – risk.
This leads to the second side of the connection between haze and climate change. Alongside smoke, fires pump climate-warming carbon dioxide into our atmosphere.
Many fires occur in the region’s degraded peatlands. These special ecosystems are naturally water-logged and store vast quantities of carbon-rich soil. But when dried out intentionally to enable more “productive” use, often using drainage canals, they leak carbon prodigiously.
Fires are a large, visible but intermittent source of carbon dioxide emissions. But drained peatlands, which are widespread in both Indonesia and Malaysia, typically release carbon throughout the year, even in the absence of fires.
In this way, peatlands are among Malaysia’s most important sources of greenhouse gas emissions, even if fires are far less common than in Indonesia.
We thus face a vicious cycle: hotter and drier conditions can increase fire risk, while fires and peatland degradation contribute to climate change.
Sustained, high-level attention on incentives to protect, sustainably manage, and restore Southeast Asia’s peatlands can be at the heart of breaking this cycle.
Emerging economic instruments, such as carbon credits, may provide helpful incentives if structured effectively. But a narrow focus on climate and carbon risks missing the bigger, more holistic picture.
This point is emphasised by a new report from the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), published in September.
The UNEP report is named “Hidden assets: The economic and health case for climate and clean air action”. Its fundamental message is that climate change and air pollution share many sources and so policies addressing both problems simultaneously can generate substantial benefits.
UNEP assesses 25 integrated climate and clean air measures which exist across energy, industry, transport, agriculture, waste and other sectors, and include “forest and peatland fire prevention”.
Across the measures, UNEP finds every US$1 invested could generate around US$15 in economic benefits. Some of these benefits are directly financial, such as reduced healthcare spending, while others such as avoided premature deaths have huge social and economic value but are often “hidden”, not usually appearing as market transactions.
This is not a calculation of the returns from haze prevention specifically. But it demonstrates the broader economic potential of tackling climate and air pollution together.
For haze the key principle is that preventing fires, particularly in peatlands, can deliver multiple and substantial benefits at once: cleaner air and better health, reducing climate-warming greenhouse gas emissions, as well as protecting ecosystems and economic activity.
This provides an important economic and policy rationale for treating haze prevention as a long-term investment in sustainable development and climate action, rather than a temporary emergency response.
Integrating clean air and climate action is a complex policy challenge. It requires coordination among ministries and levels of government that typically have a remit to focus on just one part of the system. It also needs collaboration among nations in ASEAN.
Recognising this challenge, the UNEP report emphasises that effective action often relies most on creating the institutional capacity to recognise where these problems connect and overlap, and to act on those overlaps.
To this end Malaysia would benefit from a more explicit national vision that puts haze prevention and climate action on the same page, connecting clean air and public health with lower emissions and economic growth. This vision could help to sustain coordination and shared planning across various ministries within the government, and the regional collaboration needed to prevent fires, even after the latest haze has cleared.
More integrated opportunities that can help to tackle haze and climate problems have been identified, for example in ASEAN's Investment Framework for Haze-Free Sustainable Land Management and through our recent research.
And on-the-ground developments this year, like Indonesia’s new Forest and Land Fire Handling Coordination Desk, and the long-awaited establishment of the ASEAN Coordinating Centre for Transboundary Haze Pollution Control in Jakarta, are promising signs of dedicated year-round attention, and regional coordination, respectively.
However, the current haze demonstrates the urgent need to more effectively scale and sustain consistent attention on solutions, including already identified mechanisms. A vision aligned with UNEP’s findings, recognising connected clean air, climate, health and economic opportunities, can underpin this effort.
If we cannot address our current policy challenges, the haze – and its negative impacts on our health and economic development – will inevitably return.