{"id":15526,"date":"2023-01-25T22:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-01-25T22:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.prnasia.com\/story\/archive\/3996625_AE96625_0"},"modified":"2023-01-25T22:00:00","modified_gmt":"2023-01-25T22:00:00","slug":"asian-civil-society-networks-raise-critical-questions-and-concerns-in-new-report-about-the-adbs-energy-transition-mechanism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/transmediavictoria.net.au\/?p=15526","title":{"rendered":"Asian Civil Society Networks Raise Critical Questions and Concerns in New Report About the ADB’s Energy Transition Mechanism"},"content":{"rendered":"

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia<\/span> and MANILA<\/span>, Philippines <\/span>, Jan. 26, 2023<\/span><\/span> \/PRNewswire\/ — Fair Finance Asia (FFA) and NGO Forum on ADB (the Forum) have released a new report, “The Asian Development Bank’s Energy Transition Mechanism: Emerging Social, Environmental and Rights-Based Considerations.” The report raises critical questions and concerns about the Energy Transition Mechanism (ETM), which is being advanced by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) as a market-oriented solution to accelerate the process of taking coal power off of national energy grids in specific Southeast, South and Central Asian countries and replacing it with other sources of power.<\/p>\n

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\"FFA <\/a>
FFA and NGO Forum on ADB (December 2022). The Asian Development Bank\u2019s Energy Transition Mechanism: Emerging Social, Environmental and Rights-Based Considerations.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

FFA and the Forum developed this report to serve as a source of key information for groups monitoring how the ETM is being operationalized, as well as for communities living around, and working at, coal project sites selected for ETM implementation. As ADB advances plans to pilot the ETM in Indonesia<\/span>, Philippines<\/span>, Pakistan<\/span>, and later in Kazakhstan<\/span> and Vietnam<\/span>, the report reiterates key risks and concerns being raised by civil society, community, and workers’ organizations about the design and proposed implementation of the ETM.<\/p>\n

As explained by Mr. Rayyan Hassan<\/span>, Executive Director, NGO Forum on ADB<\/b>, “By keeping a close watch on the development of the ADB’s ETM since it was announced in 2021, civil society groups in the region are becoming increasingly concerned that the ETM is flawed by design, seemingly leaving communities and workers at the very sites where the ETM will be proposed to be piloted in the dark, as the terms and conditions of early power plant retirement are negotiated under non-disclosure agreements, while turning a blind eye to the demands by broad social movements across the region for publicly accountable processes to phase out coal and other fossil fuel industries without delay.”<\/p>\n

In particular, FFA and the Forum’s new report highlights that, to date, the ETM:<\/p>\n