The Asian Development Bank (ADB) remains on track to extend over $6 billion in climate financing to its developing member countries (DMCs) this year.
In his opening remarks in the Asia Clean Energy Forum 2021, ADB President Masatsugu Asakawa said the Manila-based multilateral development bank aims to focus 75 percent of its operations on climate adaptation and mitigation.
The bank aims to provide at least $80 billion in climate financing from 2019 to 2030. This means on average about $6.6 billion annually.
“Due to the need to address the impact of the pandemic, our climate financing last year was about $4.3 billion. This year, we are confident that we will be able to provide over $6 billion for climate mitigation and adaptation through measures including investing in clean energy, as we did in 2019 when ADB provided a total of $6.5 billion for climate finance,” Asakawa said.
Asakawa also said ADB is currently reviewing its energy policy. The review of the policy, which started in 2020, will be finalized by the end of this year.
Asakawa assured that the updated policy would be aligned with ADB’s Strategy 2030 and global commitments under the Paris Agreement.
The draft energy policy aims to help DMCs move toward a carbon neutral future. Among the key points is for ADB to withdraw from financing coal-fired power plants, which has been welcomed by stakeholders.
“ADB’s new policy will be responsive to the needs of our DMCs as they build sustainable and resilient energy systems. While the final decision will have to be made by our Board, we are also aiming for a formal withdrawal from financing new coal-fired power generation,” Asakawa said.
This year’s ACEF, Asian Peoples Movement on Debt and Development (APMDD) Coordinator Lidy Nacpil, said is an opportunity to commit to end fossil fuel energy in Asia and effect a rapid and just transition to clean and renewable energy (RE) in the region way before 2050.
Nacpil said participants at the ACEF can not afford to allow business as usual given the short time left to keep global average temperatures from rising by less than 1.5 degrees Celsius.
She said APMDD members also called on the ADB to stop funding new coal, oil, and gas and withdraw its involvement in all fossil fuels projects under construction and in the pipeline.
Nacpil added that the ADB should also not allow new financing for coal for all sovereign and non-sovereign operations—including non-financing of coal by its financial intermediaries.
“The new ADB energy policy that is currently being drafted must categorically state an all-encompassing end to the ADB’s coal financing. There must be no exceptions, especially for financing false solutions, such as coal projects with Carbon Capture Usage and Storage technology, which have unproven claims of reducing carbon pollution,” Nacpil said.
On Tuesday, ADB said it is ready to play a leading role in helping Asia and the Pacific meet its Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) under the Paris Agreement and achieve net-zero emissions by the middle of the 21st century.
Asakawa said this would require major changes in the energy sector that include avoiding fossil fuels, switching to low-carbon fuels, deploying more RE, and improving energy efficiency among others.
He said ADB plans to step up its climate finance and capacity-building activities to help its DMCs achieve their NDCs.
“Now is the time for bold action,” Asakawa said. “We must commit wholeheartedly to fighting climate change and meeting the emission-reduction goals under the Paris Agreement, while ensuring universal energy access in a region where more than 200 million people still lack access to electricity.”
Co-hosted by ADB, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), and the Korea Energy Agency (KEA), ACEF runs from June 14 to 18. More than 3,000 delegates are expected to join the online event, including policy-makers, energy and private sector professionals, and civil-society organizations from around the world.
Under the theme “Accelerating the Low Carbon Transition in Asia and the Pacific,” this year’s event will explore technology road maps to achieve the NDCs, understand the impact of the coronavirus disease on the region’s energy systems, and how to foster a green recovery.
Not enough
IN a related development climate campaigners on Tuesday staged a protest in front of the UK embassy in Taguig City to denounce what they called the failure of the G7 Leaders Summit to commit to their fair shares of climate action and demand for climate finance for the ambitious target to limit global warming and avert a climate crisis.
“The G7 Summit has achieved nothing new or significant for the climate crisis. Net zero by 2050 and 50 percent emissions cuts by 2030 is far from enough. Since 2009, G7 governments have been repeating promises to mobilize climate finance of a minimum of $100 billion a year. They have failed to deliver on this pledge. And $100 billion a year is actually a pittance compared to the scale of need and their climate finance obligations,” APMDD Coordinator Nacpil said in a news statement.
“We demand bolder commitments from the G7 leaders. This decade is a critical juncture for our planet and all of us who inhabit it. Yet they agree to stop financing only for “unabated coal,” leaving the possibility to continue overseas financing for abated coal or coal-fired power generation plants outfitted with carbon capture and storage technology, a technology that is unproven and unreliable. They remain silent on stopping public financing of gas and oil. Our demand is for G7 countries to immediately halt public support for all fossil fuels given the narrow window of time left to prevent climate catastrophe,” she said. With Jonathan L. Mayuga