ADB urged to adopt ‘greener’ strategies for transport projects

THE carbon-dioxide (CO2) emissions of the transport sector in Asia are expected to increase by 54 percent by 2030 if nothing is done to control them.

This, according to an internal report at the Asian Development Bank’s Internal Evaluation Department  (IED), which urged the bank to adopt “greener strategies,” such as shifting its investment focus and environmental cost, in the evaluation and approval of all its transport-related projects.

More than three-quarters of ADB’s land-transport assistance to Asia’s transport sector from 2000 to 2009 has been in road construction and improvement, with about 150 approved road projects

The IED study found that between 2000 and 2009, these transport loans and grants contributed 792 million tons of CO2 or an average of 39.6 million tons of CO2 every year for nine years.

Given the size and magnitude of these projects, the IED said the ADB must adopt green strategies that would help cut CO2 emissions in the region. These include shifting to greener road projects and making carbon emissions the main factor in determining the economic viability of a transport project.

The IED said the strategies should include improvements in nonmotorized transport projects, encouraging the design of low-carbon projects, and making sustainable low-carbon transport a management priority of the bank.

The report said the ADB could expand its transport-investment portfolio to include bicycle and pedestrian-friendly roads, a standard of all road and public-transportation projects within cities and towns. This move, the report stated, could encourage broader urban planning and low-cost modes of transport that have been marginalized by large-scale transportation investments.

These changes will augur well for future ADB transport projects, the IED said. Within the 2010-12 lending program of the ADB, the projected transport lending is $3.4 billion a year. With the existing project appraisal and evaluation process of the ADB following a “business-as-usual” approach, these projects will certainly have a big impact on the increase of CO2 emissions in the region.

The IED said  a business-as- usual forecast of CO2 emissions growth in Delhi, India, would bring an increase in CO2 emissions to 19.6 million tons in 2030 from 6.1 million tons in 2004. This would represent a 526-percent increase from 1990 levels. Despite the adoption of cleaner and more efficient motor vehicles, the IED said emissions from these types of motor vehicles could still lead to a 447-percent rise from 1990 levels.

“With substantial improvement of public transport, walking and cycling, and such policies as road user charging to manage traffic, the rise in CO2 emissions by 2030 might be held to a 235-percent rise above 1990 levels, or if combined with wide use of cleaner and more efficient motor vehicles to a 199-percent increase from 1990 levels,” the ADB said.

In 2009 an ADB study found that Southeast Asia was one of the most vulnerable regions in the world to climate change unless steps for mitigation measures were adopted. It also established that countries such as Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam could experience combined damage equivalent to more than 6 percent of their gross domestic product every year by the end of this century as a result of climate change. –Cai U. Ordinario / Reporter, Businessmirror