Amresh Gunasingham, Straits Times 9 Jul 09;
MORE than US$1.7 billion (S$2.5 billion) in loans was distributed to countries like Indonesia, Vietnam and the Philippines last year, for them to invest in green energy alternatives.
Clean energy is now a buzzword for many countries tackling global warming, Asian Development Bank (ADB) assistant chief economist Juzhong Zhuang said in Singapore recently.
Dr Zhuang said that to push the benefits of going green, the ADB's budget would be raised to US$2 billion by 2013.
Highlighting the funding as one of the ADB's 'strategic priorities' to help poorer countries respond to climate change, he said the bank would devote at least 40 per cent of its lending by 2020 to addressing environmental issues.
Dr Zhuang was speaking on the sidelines of a seminar to highlight the findings of a recently launched ADB report on the economics of climate change in South-east Asia.
The report concluded that over the last two decades, greenhouse gas emissions in the region increased twice as fast as the global average, with the agricultural and forestry sectors accounting for 75 per cent of emissions.
It also found that South-east Asia was likely to suffer more from the effects of climate change than other parts of the world.
One reason: Many countries in the region have a dense concentration of people in coastal areas.
Also, more than 80 per cent of the region's population live within 100km from a coastline, making them vulnerable to the threat of rising sea levels and flooding.
The ADB's loans have been put to good use so far.
A project in the Philippines has seen the retrofitting in residential homes of two million compact fluorescent light bulbs, which will save US$100 million in fuel costs and cut electricity consumption.
Another is the upgrading of coal-fired power plants in China by learning to use energy-efficient power generation technology that can capture and store carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere.
Associate Professor Ho Juay Choy, a principal fellow at the Energy Studies Institute, said Singapore was playing a part by coordinating regional research efforts.
'Agriculture contributes less than 1 per cent to Singapore's GDP, yet we are leading research in the study of better farming practices and weather-resistant crops,' he noted.
Dr Zhuang added: 'Addressing climate change is a public good. We need effective government policies to see it through.'
