Not even remotely close
Why the ADB’s touted carbon footprint reductions are not as big as claimed
To read a related article published in the Business Mirror, the Philippine's leading business newspaper, on ADB's failure in carbon footprint test, click here.
Contrary to recent pronouncements by the Asian Development Bank that it “practices what it preaches with respect to energy efficiency and resource conservation,” a new study of the Bank’s transport sector funding since 1968 will reveal the Bank’s likely complicity in exacerbating global climate change.
Preliminary studies conducted by the NGO Forum on the ADB, the Bank extended a total of $35 billion transport sector assistance in the past 40 years, 21 billion of which went to roads, freeways and hi-way projects. The picture runs counter to the claim made by president Haruhiko Kuroda during the World Environment Day celebration of ADB last June 5 that the Bank “takes the threat of climate change seriously, and that the Bank is gearing towards the low-carbon path to economic growth”, in keeping with the Bank’s commitment to “kick the CO2 habit”. Mr. Kuroda also gave a run-down of lower-carbon efforts and initiatives, including corporate energy efficient practices inside the 130,000-square meter Manila headquarters.
The figures alarming considering that the transport sector may be the largest and fastest growing source of GhG emissions. Motorized vehicles are now the leading contributor in Asia to the greenhouse emissions.
According to the NGO Forum’s lead researcher Abby Don, “While the ADB heralds its efforts in minimizing its ‘corporate environmental footprint‘ (as evidenced by its nine-storey building), it dramatically and deceptively downplays its contribution to climate change through its transport sector funding. The ADB building is not the quintessence of leadership by example. The ADB is merely hype and bluster taken shape.”
To view the detailed presentation of Abby Don, click here.