07 May 2007 - Kyoto, Japan
— When one of Asia’s leading institutions
says it’s serious about funding the solutions
to climate change that makes us happy. But
when we discover that this commitment goes
no further than a glossy brochure, we can't
let that pass.
The ADB is supposed to help not harm. Its
mission is to fight poverty. It can (and
does) wield great influence over energy
technology choices - its funding acts as
a catalyst, attracting additional private
funding and its policies carry serious weight
with member countries. They are ideally
placed to fund an energy revolution, but
so far ADB has largely favoured coal and
other dirty technologies, while only putting
a token effort into the renewable energy
projects.
The meeting
The 40th annual meeting of the ADB was
held in Kyoto, Japan -- birthplace of the
Kyoto Protocol, the only legally binding
international treaty that obligates a reduction
of greenhouse gases globally. This year
marks the tenth year since the Protocol
was passed, and it wasn't a wild notion
to think the ADB's conference would attempt
to measure up to the legacy of Kyoto.
We arrived in Kyoto with very specific
demands for the ADB to phase out coal, dramatically
scale up its renewable energy and energy
efficiency initiatives and guarantee that
the US$1 billion annual clean energy pipeline
that it put together would remain free of
coal. And certainly we had fun getting our
message across.
Kimonos and 'love shirts'
After our request for space to hold an
exhibition of climate impacts was turned
down, we decided to take the exhibition
on the road using the widest T-shirts ever
designed, which gave ADB officials a serious
dilemma since it wasn't exactly a banner
protest and neither was it an exhibit. We
dubbed the wide berth T-shirts, 'love shirts'
for their partnership-creating qualities.
Solar Generation students also surprised
the meeting when, at a big dinner banquet
hosted by the ADB president, they turned
up as six mysterious kimono girls in complete
costume and with complete makeup. They only
revealed their identity when they stopped
in front of ADB President Haruhiko Kuroda
and elegantly opened their Japanese fans,
which together read "Clean Energy Now!
ADB Quit Coal!" They stayed for the
whole evening, charming and then disarming
the Bank's Governors who fell over themselves
for the photo op. The girls had taken 5
hours to get ready and couldn't drink during
the performance because of the difficulty
of getting out of the costumes. The response
they received proved that it was well worth
it though as they engaged the Bank's highest
officials in debates about climate change
and the clean energy solutions that the
Bank could enable.
The Solar Generation students had also
created beautiful bookmarks using Japan's
national flower, the cherry blossom, to
symbolise the impacts of climate change
as the blossom was a lot earlier this year
due to the warmer winter. The bookmarks
carried Solar Generation's demands to the
ADB and the students handed them out to
Bank delegates with helpful advice that
they could read the messaging when the meeting
got boring.
It's amazing to see the difference we can
make inside such an institution as the ADB.
Our decision to combine a series of highly
visual direct communication activities with
the expert policy dialogue really had an
impact on the decision makers at the meeting.
Several steps backwards
The truth is, the ADB had actually put
together a series of clean energy initiatives
that held a lot of promise in response to
the pressure we had sustained. We made sure
the ADB knew that we welcomed the new measures
and it seemed like our creative enforcement
of our demands in the opening days of the
meeting were working.
On the penultimate day of the ADB's meeting,
however, things began to fall apart. The
Bank's Board Chair Koji Omi, also Japan's
Finance Minister, was pushing nuclear energy
as a solution to climate change as well
as disgracefully dissing the Kyoto Protocol
- the only show in town when it comes to
giving us a sustainable future.
How unfortunate. The clean energy initiatives
and funding commitments the ADB unveiled
in this meeting are clear steps forward.
But continued support for coal and tolerance
for nuclear, however, has taken the ADB
five steps backward. The only pathway to
Asia’s sustainable future is signposted
‘renewable energy and energy efficiency’
and we call on the ADB to lead Asia down
that road.
