Industry and Energy

Home page

Industry and Energy

ADB holds national workshop on economics of climate change mitigation in Azerbaijan

31 January 2014 10:51 (UTC +04:00)

Baku. Vahab Rzayev – APA-Economics. On January 27, a national workshop on the economics of climate change mitigation in Central and West Asia under an ADB technical assistance was held in Baku. The workshop attended by about 35 participants from the Ministries of Energy, Transport, Ecology and Natural Resources, Economy and Industry and the State Agency for Alternative and Renewable Energy Sources, civil society organizations, development partners and academia was facilitated by Cinzia Losseno of ADB’s senior climate change specialist and a team of consultants. The technical assistance is co-financed by ADB and the Government of Japan.

It was noted at the workshop that Azerbaijan has significant opportunities for emission reduction investments, involving energy efficiency, renewable energy, and sustainable transport, but limited information about real mitigation potential and associated costs. The technical assistance will help identify policy and technologies that can be adopted to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, cost effective investment options in the transport and energy sectors, and provide trainings to national stakeholders on state of the art tools for emission reduction scenarios.

The workshop is part of a regional program aimed to estimate the cost and benefits of greenhouse gas emission reduction and design low-carbon development investment proposals to address prioritized mitigation needs in Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan. “ADB is committed to supporting the region’s efforts to address climate change, and is making concerted efforts to do more. ADB annual clean energy program, for example, has grown from about $600 million in 2005 to about $2.3 billion in 2012,” said Olly Norojono, ADB Resident Representative in Azerbaijan in his opening remarks.