Asian Development Bank to launch $200 million carbon fund

Reuters, 10 December 2008 - The Asian Development Bank (ADB) on Wednesday said it is has secured half of the financing commitments for a $200 million post-2012 carbon fund it plans to launch in January.

Announced on the sidelines of United Nations climate change talks in Poland, the ADB's Future Carbon Fund aims to provide money to build clean energy projects in developing countries in the Asia-Pacific region.

"The Future Carbon Fund is a public-private partnership between ADB and the governments and companies who have decided to act now," said ADB Vice President Ursula Schaefer-Preuss.

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Under the Kyoto Protocol climate pact, which expires in 2012, companies and governments can invest in projects in poorer nations and in return receive offsets which can be used towards their own emissions reduction goals.

The ADB said its fund will allow participants to invest in clean energy projects registered under Kyoto's Clean Development Mechanism scheme, even in the absence of a global framework on climate change.

The fund will make upfront payments to project developers to help finance constructions, and receive U.N.-approved offsets after 2012.

The fund has exceeded its public funding target, with participants including Finland and Sweden contributing around half of the committed financing, the ADB said in a statement.

The first project financing could come as early as next year, the bank said.

Governments are meeting this month at the U.N. talks in Poland in an effort to agree on a successor pact to Kyoto.

(Reporting by Michael Szabo; Editing by William Hardy)

Sourced from the Thomson Reuters Carbon Markets Community - a free, gated online network for carbon market and climate policy professionals.