Singapore can fix Southeast Asia’s haze, if it wants to

People try to extinguish a wildfire in Indonesia's South Kalimantan province on Saturday. | AFP-JIJI

Oct 14, 2026

A cloud of haze has descended across Southeast Asia over the past few months as a brutal El Nino helps incinerate forest and scrub in Indonesia. Obscuring responsibility for the fires stems from a much deeper and more impenetrable legal pall.

The smoke has spread across the region, forcing schools to close in Malaysia, diverting flights and giving tiny Singapore — which has no dry lands of its own aflame — the worst air pollution in the world. If current trends persist, this episode may turn into the worst in Southeast Asia since devastating wildfires in 2015.

To hear the way this is talked about in Singapore, the region’s wealthiest country, the whole situation is an act of God: Fires just happen and no one can be sure exactly who is responsible. A more sophisticated diagnosis blames intransigence in the region’s largest country. When Singapore passed a law in 2014 threatening millions of dollars in fines for companies causing haze, Indonesia’s refusal to cooperate made it impossible to implement. For the city-state, discretion toward its giant neighbor has become the better part of diplomacy.

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