ADB vows to support air quality management schemes in Asia

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has vowed to continue to strongly support Air Quality Management (AQM) activities in Asia, including the Philippines.

ADB vice president for knowledge management and sustainable development Geert van der Linden said the bank’s support will come in the form of lending and non-lending assistance.

Aside from the financial and non-financial supports, he said the ADB will continue to hold policy dialogue with its member-countries.

Linden said the bank will also support regional cooperation activities such as its support for the Clean Air Initiative (CAI).

Recently, the ADB approved an equity investment of $20 million in a fund to help small-and medium-size firms in Asia to invest in energy efficiency and renewable energy with clean technologies.

Having a cleaner air is part of ADB’s long-term strategic framework. This framework particularly places sustainable economic growth and integrating environmental concerns within all its efforts at the core of its development agenda towards achieving Millenium Development Goals.

ADB also has ongoing environmental initiatives such as Renewable Energy, Energy Efficiency and Climate Change program and the recently launched Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) facility, which will provide opportunities to developing countries to access additional financial resources by reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

For many years, ADB has been concerned with the green environment. But in recent years, we have been placing more and more attention on the brown environment. In this, air quality is a key component.

In the Philippines, ADB has already provided a financing to improve the air quality in Metro Manila.

For his part, Energy Secretary Vincent S. Perez said the Philippine government as a partner in improving air quality has made giant strides in mitigating the impact of energy-related activities on AQM.

He said in particular, the Philippine government has pushed for the increased utilization of renewable energy in the power generation mix.

Perez cited a report from the National Power Corp. (Napocor) which showed the country’s high dependence on indigenous energy sources in power generation. For the first nine months of the year, the generation mix share of natural gas plants shot up to 12.01 percent from 6.43 percent a year ago. The share of hydroelectric power plants stood at 19.86 percent from 17.62 percent. Geothermal plants share was recorded at 26.75 percent.