Asian Development Bank

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) will spend US275 million to help China bus operators to shift their fleets to cleaner fuel in a bid to lower emissions in major cities.

A new United Nations report has identified Asia, especially China, as the world’s most vulnerable region to climate change and natural disasters. In assessing the financial impact of global disasters, the report says the economic toll in 2012 exceeded USD10 billion and that future disasters may represent a serious threat to the region’s otherwise healthy economies.

Massive investment is required to develop and deploy climate-friendly technology if global warming is to be halted and developing countries prepared to cope with the adverse consequences of climate change, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) told climate change delegates in Doha earlier this week.

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has agreed to provide four loans of as much as USD200 million to China Everbright International for agricultural and municipal waste-to-energy projects in China.

The growing incidence of natural disasters in Asia and the Pacific — where four of five cities globally classified as at extreme risk are located — threatens to undermine seriously rapid economic progress, calling for a much stronger focus among governments on disaster prevention, says a new study from Independent Evaluation at the Asian Development Bank. The region has borne the brunt of the physical and economic damage of the sharp rise in natural disasters since the 1980s. Its people are four times more likely to be affected by natural disaster than in Africa and 25 times more than in Europe or North America.