Asia’s rural populations—from remote mountainous regions to low-lying coastal communities in Small Island Developing States (SIDS) countries and Fragile and Conflict-Affected Situations (FCAS)*—are the most vulnerable to the effects of climate change: extreme weather events, drought, increased precipitation, rising sea levels, storm surges, and coastal flooding. Presenters in this session examined mitigation and adaptation technologies, energy-efficient and climate-resilient building practices, green insurance products, and innovative motorized water transport for efficient evacuation in the wake of disasters.
*Countries in Fragile and Conflict-Affected Situations include most (9 out of 14) of ADB’s Pacific Developing Member Countries, as well as Afghanistan, Nepal, and Myanmar. For more information see here.
Moderator: Cindy Tiangco, Senior Energy Specialist, ADB
Presenters:
The Intersection of Climate, Energy, Health for the hope of lasting Peace
Philline Donggay, Director of Storytelling, Greenergy Solar Philippines
In 2017, the Marawi City Siege in Mindanao, Philippines led to months of military combat, which displaced thousands of people and disrupted the city’s electricity and water supply. This presentation provided an overview on the collaborative opportunities to rebuild the city and make considerable gains in health and well-being, climate action, clean energy, and peace.
Enhancing Power Sector Resilience in the Lao PDR: Assessing Vulnerabilities and Planning for Resilience
Yevang Nhiavue, Technical Officer, Ministry of Energy and Mines, Lao PDR
This presentation highlighted the power sector resilience planning activity conducted in Lao PDR, through a collaboration between the Lao Ministry of Energy and Mines and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). It also shared the approach and results of a comprehensive, stakeholder-driven vulnerability assessment and resilience action planning process.
The Strategic Mitigation Adaptation and Resilience (SMART) Tool: Integrating Planning Objectives in Southeast Asia and Pacific Countries
Megan Argyriou, Head of Programs, ClimateWorks Australia
Developing long-term, low emissions development strategies provide an opportunity for Asia-Pacific countries highly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change to simultaneously achieve other development objectives, including energy and food security, economic resilience and resilience to natural disasters. This presentation focused on the Strategic Mitigation Adaptation and Resilience (SMART) Tool, which was developed to identify these potential co-benefits and trade-offs, and discuss key findings from the SMART analysis undertaken for Pacific Island and Vietnamese country contexts.
Innovative Finance for Sustainable Energy Access: Lessons from the World’s First Result-Based Loans in the Energy Sector – an Independent Verifier’s Perspective
Chitra Priambodo, Director, Castlerock Consulting Pte Ltd
ADB is supporting PLN, the Indonesian state electricity company, with the world’s first result-based lending (RBL) programs in the energy sector to help realize the nation’s goal of sustainable universal electricity access. The loan’s disbursements are linked to the achievement of the program results rather than to upfront expenditures – a complete flip in the approach from traditional project lending – and uses the borrower’s systems, including monitoring and evaluation (M&E), fiduciary, safeguards and other areas. One of RBL’s core strengths is in handling large numbers of small transactions, and in some cases intangible interventions such as behavioural change. In the energy sector it is well suited to support last mile power connections and energy efficiency efforts. Since an RBL program relies almost entirely on the borrower’s M&E system, highly credible independent verification of results is a necessary condition. This presentation described the progress achieved through the financing innovation, the various results verification methods applied by the Independent Verification Agent (IVA), and the lessons learned in supporting and enhancing a power utility’s system to accelerate sustainable energy access.
Hybrid Renewable Energy System in Remote Area of Sumba Island
Elisabeth Rianawati, Director, Resilience Development Initiative (RDI)
Sumba is a remote island in the eastern part of Indonesia. The island electrification ratio of only 24.55% and high poverty rate of 30% by 2016. As such, it has become the pilot project of off-grid renewable energy based namely Sumba Iconic Island (SII). To achieve the goal of 100% electrification rate, various technologies have been studied its feasibility and implemented on field. This presentation discussed the implementation of hybrid RE technology in comparison to singular technology of solar home systems. Three case studies were discussed: village with exclusively solar home system, village with micro hydro plants and solar system and village with wind mill, micro hydro and diesel generators. The presentation also discussed the strength and weaknesses between the hybrid renewable energy system and solely solar home system.