Fossil Free ADB: A new campaign targeting the Asian Development Bank
Today, we’ve joined with civil society groups and peoples’ movements from around the world to launch an exciting new campaign: Fossil Free ADB. The goal of the campaign is to pressure the Asian Development Bank (ADB) to stop financing fossil fuels.
Today, we’ve joined with civil society groups and peoples’ movements from around the world to launch an exciting new campaign: Fossil Free ADB. The goal of the campaign is to pressure the Asian Development Bank (ADB) to stop financing fossil fuels.
The Asian Development Bank has spent billions financing dirty gas, coal, and oil projects across Asia. In recent years, the Bank’s financing has focused largely on gas. The ADB has financed gas field expansion in Azerbaijan, gas power plants in Indonesia and Bangladesh and studies to enable gas expansion in Kazakhstan and Sri Lanka. If the ADB continues to invest in fossil fuels including gas, the Bank will lock in emissions we cannot afford.
Gas expansion in Asia poses one of the greatest threats to meeting the goals of the Paris Agreement. Life cycle emissions from gas generate significant methane emissions. Methane is a climate crisis accelerator and is over 80 times more harmful to the climate than CO2 on a 20 year basis.
But, we have a significant opportunity to change the ADB’s actions.
For the first time in over a decade, the ADB is revising its energy policy. What the Bank decides now will set the course for whether we cut global carbon emissions by 2030 and stop harming communities with dirty fossil fuel projects, or fail to protect our planet and communities.
The ADB recognizes that its policy is not aligned with the rapidly shifting global consensus on climate. The European Union, UK, and US recently made commitments to stop financing fossil fuel infrastructure at home and abroad. This follows the European Investment Bank’s decision to end its financing of gas, coal, and oil projects and become the world’s first climate bank. This has set a new marker for what it means to be a climate leader. As the chair of the Multilateral Development Bank Working Group on Paris Alignment, there’s significant pressure on the ADB to build on these path breaking commitments and end its fossil fuel financing.
Our international coalition is planning a host of actions to mobilize pressure on the ADB and send a clear message that it must stop financing fossil fuels. This includes online actions, media stories, op-eds, political advocacy and more.
We encourage you to check out our new website: fossilfreeadb.org where you can learn more and take action. Your support will be critical to pressuring this critical institution to stop financing the climate crisis.