Mitigating Climate Change Via Clean Energy Financing: An Assessment of the Asian Development Bank’s Mitigation Efforts in Southeast Asia

Abstract

As Southeast Asia has registered an impressive economic growth in recent years, considerable stress to the environment in the form of an increasing level of emissions has also been paramount. Development failed to trickle down and energy poverty remains a significant issue in Asia. While it is important to amend the current emission trajectory and, at the same time, address issues about energy access, a colossal need to mobilize funding is necessary – a gap which multilateral development banks are expected to fill. This article explores and assesses the important role the Asian Development Bank (ADB) has in addressing these issues. Drawing on the assessment of ADB Country Strategies and the energy sector portfolio in Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines and Vietnam, the enquiry reveals, among other things, that only 42% of ADB energy financed projects contain renewable components, and that data on how ADB projects addressed on the issue of energy poverty remains unavailable. On top of the quantitative data presented, this article also presents a critical engagement of ADB’s policy environmental assumptions.