Industrialization and urbanization in Southeast Asia rapidly accelerated in the 1700s, in keeping with global patterns associated with the beginning of the Anthropocene. However, while this boom is typically associated with the expansion of a coal- and fossil-fuel-based energy regime in Europe and the Americas, in Southeast Asia most industrial enterprises relied instead on a more widely abundant energy supply: charcoal. This “living carbon” economy had widespread social, economic and ecological impacts, and it became especially focused on the exploitation of mangrove forests which were close to some of the fastest-growing, colonial cities. This paper explores the social and environmental dimensions of the charcoal-based energy regime in Southeast Asia and its association with some of the region’s fastest growing coastal cities.