The Asian Development Bank: Stop bankrolling climate change!

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The Asian Development Bank (ADB) is responsible for financing climate change in Asia and its policies are contributing to the displacement of communities and the destruction of ecosystems in the region.
What is the ADB?

The ADB stands for the Asian Development Bank. As a development bank, its mandate is to reduce poverty, primarily through lending money for development projects to governments. The ADB claims that environmental considerations are a high priority because sustainable development and conservation is essential to reducing poverty. Part of their environmental statement is to "empower the poor and give them a stake in managing the environment and natural resources."

What's so bad about that?

The words sound nice, but the reality is much different. In the past the ADB has funded projects that have lead to disastrous environmental and social consequences. And the ADB has not learned from its mistakes- it continues to back damaging projects like coal-fired power plants. Ironically, the very people the ADB claims to protect, the poor, are the ones who suffer the brunt of the harmful effects.

The ADB is a publically funded institution but is not held accountable to the public. Both taxpayers in donor countries and citizens of developing countries (including those in local communities, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and even government) have no say in which projects get funded. So how are the decisions made? Money talks, and those who get to speak the most are lobbyists representing powerful corporations.

Dirty Energy

Unfortunately, some of the companies most successfully lobbying the ADB promote dirty energy. Between 1970 and 2003, the ADB co-financed projects to the tune of US$40.6 billion, 41% of which was to the energy sector. Of the ADB's entire Energy Portfolio Financing from 1966-2004, only 1.82% went towards funding renewable energy and energy efficiency. The overwhelming majority of financing is geared towards fossil fuel power projects such as the Masinloc coal plant in the Philippines and Southeast Asia’s largest and most notorious coal plant in Mae Moh, Thailand. Since Mae Moh began operations in 1955, 30 000 people have been displaced, almost 200 killed and thousands suffer from respiratory problems caused by inhalation and exposure to sulfur dioxide from the mine and the power station.

What can be done?

Clean alternatives to fossil fuel power in Asia are widely available. In the Philippines enough wind power potential exists to produce 7 times over the country’s current energy demand. In the Chinese province of Guangdong there exists sufficient wind power potential to meet the equivalent of the current energy supply in Hong Kong.

Organizations like the ADB need to stop fuelling the problem of climate change and start financing cleaner, safer solutions.

You can help!

Send an email to the ADB asking them to commit to a 20% renewable energy target for power project lending annually. Help pressure the ADB to come clean on dirty energy!

go to: http://www.asiacleanenergy.org/adb/ to send the adb an email

for more information visit: http://www.greenpeace.org.ph

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Tokyo, Japan — Greenpeace activists, joined by a Thai community leader, today confronted officials of the Japanese government bank with their demands for investing in clean renewable energy instead of dirty energies that are contributing to climate change, local pollution, and community displacement.
This confrontation came after a series of the Greenpeace actions in Hong Kong, Australia, and Philippines demanding an "Energy Revolution", by introducing more clean renewable energy and phasing-out environmentally and socially harmful energy sources, like coal in the Asian region. With a banner saying "Stop Funding Climate Change, Go for Clean Renewable Energy", Greenpeace activists and a community leaders from Thailand, Philippines, Chile, India, and China directly delivered their messages of "Energy Revolution" to the bank.

The Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC), the largest governmental development bank and export credit agency in Asia, has been making little efforts--far from being sufficient--to stop dangerous climate change and alleviate local problems, and disbursing substantial Japanese tax payers' money to many dirty energy projects in Asia, including US$233 million to the 1400MW coal- fired power plant being constructed for the Map Ta Phut industrial estate in Thailand.

Unless JBIC and the Japanese government change their course of investments and support clean renewable energy in developing regions, it would be very difficult to prevent dangerous effects of global warming said Greenpeace Japan Climate Change campaigner, Masaaki Nakajima. "The Japanese government asserts all countries should participate in the UN international efforts to mitigate climate change, but it is the Japanese government and JBIC that are hampering the clean and sustainable development in those developing countries. This is sheer contradiction to their argument" he added.

In addition to fuelling climate change, the construction of the power plant in Map Ta Phut estate is already polluting our water, eroding our coast and affecting our fisheries. It is having a severe impact on the health and livelihood of local people. The Thai community leader in the Map Ta Phut, Charoen Detkhum, who has been fighting against polluting developments forced on his community for decades, is arguing financiers like JBIC should not be using public money to lock his country into this polluting power system that destroy his community and alleviate climate change problems.

"JBIC must start new way of thinking for financing cleaner, safer solutions. We are delivering concrete real solutions, including Wind Guangdong in China, and renewables initiative in Philippines and India. The direction JBIC and Japanese government must look at is clear, now is the time to act for sustainable future" concluded Nakajima.
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visit: http://www.greenpeace.org/seasia/en/ for more information