The Asian Development Bank is planning to channel about 700 million US dollars from two new investment funds to its developing member countries as part of a broad global initiative to help them meet the cost of fighting climate change.
Donor countries, including Australia, France, Germany, Japan, Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Britain and the United States, pledged more than 6.1 billion dollars in 2008 for the Clean Technology Fund and Strategic Climate Fund.
The climate investment funds are being made available to multilateral development banks, including ADB, for climate change-related investments.
The Clean Technology Fund will support the introduction of low carbon energy technologies, such as wind, solar, hydro and geothermal power, as well as energy efficiency measures.
The Strategic Climate Fund will support pilot programmes including climate resilience and forest investment with the goal of demonstrating effective climate mitigation strategies for future use.
The two funds will be discontinued once the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change finalises a new global program for addressing climate change and the new financial mechanisms needed to support it.
