Background 

In the past decade, the green bond (or more generally the concept of green financing) market has emerged and grown. It gave the investors the opportunity to align their pursuit for financial returns with their pursuit for environmental benefit by ascertaining that the investment proceeds get channeled through to green assets – e.g. clean energy assets.

As the Pacific developing member countries (DMCs) battle multiple development challenges, progress is hampered by a significant obstruction – access to clean, reliable and affordable energy. In the Pacific region, where electricity supply remains dominated by diesel-based generation, all nations are struggling to meet their own energy security objectives, as well as their Paris Agreement commitments and Nationally Determined Contributions.

Several countries have reached peak GHG emissions levels and many more have a commitment to a peak in emissions in the future. By 2030, countries representing at least 60% of global emissions are committed to reach their respective peaks.

The People’s Republic of China recently announced that they will achieve a peak in emissions before 2030 and carbon neutrality by 2060, while Fiji, Japan, the Republic of Korea, Marshall Islands, and Timor-Leste have joined the Carbon Neutrality Coalition.

Central Asian countries have abundant energy resources that are unevenly distributed. Some countries are rich with fossil fuels, while others have substantial hydro resources. One thing that all these countries have in common is substantial renewable energy potential that can play a significant role in decarbonizing the region.

The COVID-19 pandemic spurred a global cessation of travel, manufacturing, and countless economic activities. This calls for clean energy innovations with immediate responses to the changes and, at the same time, to stimulate innovation for accelerating future sustainable energy transition.

While dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic, the issue of how to combine economic stimulus recovery with green energy transition becomes an important topic for sustainable development in the post COVID-19 era. Among various actions, green recovery plans and carbon neutrality targets are given high priority.

In order to have a better understanding of COVID-19's impacts on the energy transition, it is important to investigate the changes during the pandemic and post COVID-19 in terms of energy demands (in different sectors and different countries), energy mix (including renewable energy penetration), energy load profile (over different days of the week and different hours of the day), emissions and other aspects.

Presentations in this session provided in-depth analyses of technical roadmap, including NDC goals, specific new technologies, implementation plan, etc., described their role in a city level, national or regional context, and demonstrate how they contribute to achievement of NDC goals.

This session included a discussion of the technology developments in renewables and energy efficiency, electrification, and other sectors, and approaches for setting the more ambitious targets in energy roadmaps with regulatory changes needed for the NDCs. Speakers presented specific low carbon transition cases through sharing innovative technology, advanced solution, business model and regulatory, etc.

This session reviewed policies and plans for DMC’s relevance to NDC implementation, thereby providing the space for relevant stakeholders to come together, discuss, and increase overall awareness on climate change-related issues and NDC implementation specifically.

Aside from the Track Sessions, ACEF 2021 also featured Spotlight Sessions and Special Sessions on Regional Topics.

Spotlight Sessions were sessions covering innovative ideas and approaches in clean energy.
Special Sessions on Regional Topics were sessions organized by ADB’s Regional Departments.

Track 2 considered medium-term issues faced by ADB’s DMCs. The pandemic disruption has provided a window of opportunity to reset energy sector priorities and to rethink technology, finance, and policy in light of cross-sectoral issues and needs. While technological innovations and markets have to be assessed under the new normal scenario, new priorities must consider the urgency of accelerating the transition to a low-carbon energy system.