The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) aims to drive the world’s green economy and stands ready to support members’ investments to achieve climate goals, a senior executive has said.
Speaking to Xinhua during the 26th session of the Conference of the Parties (COP26) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change in Glasgow, Scotland, Sir Danny Alexander, the AIIB’s vice president for policy and strategy, said the bank plans to align all its operations with the targets of the Paris Agreement by July 1, 2023.
Alexander stressed it’s critical that the COP26 summit achieves big steps forward in terms of global commitments to actions on climate change, adding that it is already happening.
The AIIB began operations in Beijing in 2016 and has since grown to 104 approved members worldwide. It is capitalized at 100 billion U.S. dollars and rated Triple-A by the major international credit rating agencies.
“For AIIB as a multilateral institution, we stand ready to work with all of our member countries to support their investments to help achieve these crucial global goals……and we look forward to making a contribution to this global goal,” Alexander said.
He also highlighted that green investment is a crucial part of the economic recovery in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Projects now have to “be able to be adapted and resilient to climate change in the future,” the executive continued, adding that “climate change adaptation, making sure that people are protected from flooding, storms and so forth, is going to be a major demand for infrastructure in the years to come.”
By 2025, 50 percent of AIIB’s financing will be climate finance, he added, referring to things such as renewable energy, which is “a huge issue for many societies in Asia.”
