BAKU, Azerbaijan, February 4
By Nargiz Sadikhova - Trend:
The year of 2021 was a milestone in terms of lowering emissions, Executive Director at NGO Forum on ADB, Rayyan Hassan told Trend.
Commenting on the main achievements of 2021 lowering emissions, Hassan quoted UN Climate Change Executive Secretary Patricia Espinosa.
“I think she articulated four main achievements in terms of global climate in 2021. The first one was that there was increased focus and understanding on adaptation, and governments and financiers started to give resources and focus to adaptation plans as well as reducing emissions. This is important for us in Asia because people most vulnerable to climate change are the ones living in coastal areas or those related to climate for their livelihood, like fisherfolk and farmers. So if adaptation budget or adaptation financing is not there, then the poorest of the poor and the most vulnerable will not be taken care of and the fact that adaptation financing has moved up and adaptation policy has increased is a good thing,” Hassan said.
The second thing, he said, was climate finance, which is definitely something that has been argued and lobbied for a way back from the 1997 Kyoto Protocol.
“From our experience, we have seen the ADB move from $30 billion in climate finance in 2014 up to $80 billion in 2020, and now I think it is at a $100 billion of climate finance portfolio until 2030. So these increasing allocations in climate financing are encouraging to see,” he said.
However, he pointed out, one needs to very carefully look at this new money and make sure it goes in the right places.
“If it ends up in fossil fuels or some policy loophole, then even though we might have the money we still might not be lowering emissions. In terms of lowering emissions what was achieved for us is a milestone. We have seen the Asian Development Bank announce a coal moratorium, i.e. they have excluded the coal finance so that is a very big victory for NGO Forum on ADB and those for the climate movement,” Hassan added.
He also pointed out the announcement that China is targeting net-zero by 2060.
“The idea of net-zero energy systems and the fact that different governments are now shutting down coal-powered power plants for the future is encouraging. My own country, Bangladesh has canceled 9 coal fire power plants in 2021, we have seen the Philippines government announce a coal moratorium in the country, which is definitely positive news,” Hassan concluded.
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