Green Infrastructure Investment Opportunities:

Abstract

Green Infrastructure Investment Opportunities THAILAND 2021 REPORT ADB Foreword As Asia and the Pacific continue on the path of recovery from the global COVID-19 pandemic, it remains imperative that the region's recovery strategies do not undermine achievements to date in reducing dependency on fossil fuels and protecting the environment, for which national and regional infrastructure plans play a key role in economic growth and social development.Southeast Asia has a major role to play in achieving the Paris Agreement goals and mitigating global warming, but we need to scale up our member countries' ambitious climate projects to meet their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs). The region has made significant progress to scale up climate action, and we have witnessed a renewed momentum in the weeks and months up to COP26, but major challenges remain particularly on financing. The Asian Development Bank (ADB) estimates that Southeast Asian countries alone need $210 billion per year, but they currently face an estimated funding gap of over $100 billion per year.ADB is committed to supporting its developing member countries in tackling climate change. ADB was the first multilateral development bank to set clear climate investment targets for 2030 in its Strategy and has now raised its ambition to deliver $100 billion in cumulative financing between 2019 and 2030 to combat climate change. ADB has recently launched two of the most innovative initiatives for Southeast Asia during the United Nations UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26) in November 2021 in Glasgow, UK: (i) the ADB Energy Transition Mechanism partnership (ETM), which will leverage a market-based approach to accelerate to accelerate the transition from fossil fuels to clean energy; and (ii) the ASEAN Green Recovery Platform, with total pledges of $665 million managed by ADB to mobilize an additional $7 billion for low-carbon and climate-resilient infrastructure projects in Southeast Asia.Access to financing remains challenging, as capital shies away from emerging economies. The growing global green bond market has been crucial in generating some of the financing required, but it must expand, and ADB has intensified its efforts since 2020 to grow access to green and sustainable finance through the development of capital markets in the region.ADB has worked and will keep working with the Government of the Kingdom of Thailand on further developing its capital markets, particularly in support of new green, sustainable, and social issuances. Building on the support provided to the government of Thailand in the issuance of the first sustainable COVID-19 recovery bond in 2020, two additional social and green bonds were issued in Thailand with support from the ASEAN Catalytic Green Finance Facility (ACGF), bringing in an additional THB 5,000 million (approx. $150 million) in funding in 2021.ADB is proud to support this important and timely report, through technical assistance for the ACGF, as part of a longstanding relationship with the Cli...