Green power key to Asia's sustainable growth
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icies (such as the granting of fiscal incentives and implementation of national renewable energy policy) supported the growth of wind energy in these two countries. Other Asian countries have likewise embarked on renewable energy. The Philippines has a national policy on renewable energy and its developing wind and solar power. ADB financed upgrading of hydropower dams and solar street lamps in Nepal. Indonesia is tapping its huge geothermal potential.
Kuroda said that ADB has allocated 2 billion U.S. dollars a year for climate change. But this is a "drop in the bucket" compared to the public and private investments needed by countries in the Asia Pacific region.
The International Energy Agency estimates that from 2006 to 2030, the region needs 9 trillion U.S. dollars to develop clean energy technologies.
Given the huge investment needed, analysts said that the private sector should step in.
But GWEC's Sawyer said private sector's investments can only come in if the government will do its part through pricing support, giving clean energy investors priority access to grid and having a clear and transparent regulation process.
"The government should not be in the business of building and running power plants because it's inefficient," Sawyer said.
For his part, Kuroda said there are many technologies with the potential to help Asia move towards a low carbon economy.
"But due to many barriers, from the higher price to intellectual property concerns, these technologies are not being deployed in scale. Bringing down these barriers is our key challenge. But even then, funding will be needed to deploy these technologies," Kuroda said.
Kuroda said that one of the major barrier to the effective transfer of technology is the lack of intellectual property mechanisms to transfer the ability to produce clean energy technologies. He said that to resolve this, the ADB is preparing to create a market place or exchange for clean energy technologies.
One such ADB-led project is the Solar Energy Initiative launched last April. This initiative aims to raise financing for development of 3,000 megawatts of solar power.
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