There were two specific events on CCUS in the Asia Development Bank's ACEF week, both with a focus on CCUS in developing countries in Asia. The first was a Side Event on Financing CCUS on the 18th June. The second was a "Deep Dive Workshop" on Enabling CCUS Implementation in Asia, on the 19th June.
The Financing event was organised by the Clean Energy Ministerial CCUS Initiative and had participants from private and public sector finance. It was made up of two parts. Firstly there was a panel on "Why is CCUS so hard to finance", which had some interesting and new perspectives based upon experiences. Natalia Kulichenko-Lotz from the World Bank (which has a CCS Trust fund which is successfully funding activities in South Africa and Mexico) described the challenges for CCS in developing countries from their experiences. These include the perceptions that it is complex and not yet proven, and the limited awareness of and capacity in CCUS (which incidentally are both a focus of our COP Side-events). Also that climate change mitigation is not enough of a business case on its own in developing countries. With respect to multilateral agencies, there is a problem in financing CCS in that the donor countries are not "pushing" for CCUS to be supported by the funding they provide to the agencies. Coupled with there is not always the "pull" from recipient countries. Also there is an issue with reconciling capture from fossil fuels with the concept of the phase out of fossil fuels, which again needs direction from donors. Further perspectives drawn from experience were given by Sue-Ern Tan of OGCI and Allan Baker of Societe General, which included the need for stable policy.
The second part of the Financing event was led by Tony Yuen of Citi who presented the Key Financing Principles for CCUS. These had been jointly elaborated for CEM CCUS by several finance organisations. These principles include that: the finance sector should ensure CCUS is part of their climate change strategies and is eligible for sustainable finance; governments should consider CCUS as part of their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC); and governments should utilize existing development and climate institutions to advance CCUS in developing countries. [Note: IEAGHG witnesses the need for these principles in our engagement in UNFCCC COPs]. Especially relevant now with COVID, there is also the principle that governments should consider CCUS investment as a means of creating and preserving sustainable jobs and providing a low-carbon stimulus to the economy. Then a panel discussed the implementation of these principles in an Asian context. The ADB Chief of Energy, Yongping Zhai acknowledged the importance of CCUS and that the implementation of CCS is different from country to country. He also fully endorsed Natalia's points from the multilateral agency perspective. Abyd Karmali of Bank of America suggested that the updating of countries' NDCs should start including CCUS.
Overall, an impressive panel of real expertise and experience in financing of CCS, sharing their learnings and well-made principles and points, with a virtual audience of 350.
The second event was a "Deep Dive Workshop" on Enabling CCUS Implementation in Asia. This was organised by ADB, UK BEIS and Japan's METI. It was introduced by Priyantha Wijayatunga of ADB and Peter Warren of UK BEIS. The UK is the largest multilateral donor on CCUS, and ADB is supporting CCUS activities in Indonesia, China, Pakistan, Bangladesh, India, Vietnam and Mongolia. Updates were then given on CCUS activities by China, Japan, Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia and India. The new country updates were most interesting but tantalisingly brief for the interests of the remote audience of some 160.
Overall, it was good to have two events on CCUS in ADB's ACEF week, showing that CCUS is developing in Asia and showcasing the ADB's CCUS activities. Being held virtually, the audiences were higher than usual, but more in listening mode with limited opportunities to interact and engage. We look forward to more of these events in a physical ACEF (having attended and reported from the last two years) and we very much look forward to taking the IEAGHG International CCS Summer School to the region.
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