President Masa on 13 October announced the increase in ADB climate finance target from $80 billion to $100 billion from 2019 to 2030. About $17 billion in climate finance is expected to be registered for 2019 to 2021.The additional $20 billion will provide support for the climate agenda in five main areas:1. First, new avenues for climate mitigation, including energy storage, energy efficiency, and low-carbon transport. ADB expects its cumulative climate mitigation finance to reach $66 billion.2. Second, a scale-up of transformative adaptation projects.

Major multilateral development banks including ADB committed $66 billion in 2020 from $61 billion in 2019. Around $38 billion (58% ) has been committed for low to middle-income countries. This is according to the 2020 Joint Report on Multilateral Development Banks’ Climate Finance published on 30 June 2021.

An external evaluation of the performance of the Clean Energy Financing Partnership Facility (CEFPF) will be conducted in 2022 as requested by the financing partners. The external evaluation will assess how effective CEFPF is in helping ADB achieve its clean energy goals, while also meeting financing partner expectations.

On 30 September 2021, the Climate Change Steering Committee authorized the allocation of $2.5 million in funding support from the Canadian Climate Fund to the Private Sector in Asia (CFPS) and the Carbon Capture and Storage Fund (CCSF) under the Clean Energy Financing Partnership Facility (CEFPF) to two technical assistance (TA) projects: 

The Artificial Intelligence and Digitalization Innovation Fund (AIDIF) is the latest trust fund to be established under the Clean Energy Financing Partnership Facility (CEFPF). The AIDIF aims to develop clean energy technologies utilizing innovative and promising artificial intelligence and digital technologies that are close to commercialization and help mitigate adverse effects of climate change and wider development benefits.

Energy efficiency remains a tricky matter to harness, notwithstanding its vast potential. This ADBI Working Paper examines off-balance sheet equity as one of the options that could be tapped to effectively mobilize energy efficiency financing.

This ADBI working paper proposes several policy recommendations to modify existing guidelines for selecting ESCOs to manage the energy efficiency of streetlights in Indonesia. It specifically proposes the use of smart street lighting technologies to improve the value-added services of streetlights and the establishment of a super ESCO to accelerate ESCO business activity in all economic sectors.

On 17 March ADB Ventures announced its first investments: in an electric vehicle company and an energy efficiency-as-a-service company for large hospitals, and commercial buildings both based in India.Euler Motors Pvt. Ltd., based in India, is an electric vehicle manufacturer and fleet operator focused on last-mile commercial logistics, accelerating India’s and Southeast Asia’s transition to sustainable mobility. Euler Motors has raised $9.4 million in Series A funding with participation by ADB Ventures, Blume, Inventus, and other investors.Smart Joules Pvt.

A $1 million regional Knowledge and Support Technical Assistance project was approved on 12 September to help ADB DMCs improve energy efficiency, mitigate the risks of virus transmission, and ensure safe working conditions in public buildings through the deployment of efficient, clean, and smart centralized air-conditioning (CAC) systems.

The Energy SG under one of its technical assistance projects has called an innovation challenge for smart digitalization and applications in disease-resilient and energy-efficient centralized air-conditioning (CAC) systems in public buildings of ADB developing member countries.