Category: Finance

Southeast Asia requires an estimated $3.1 trillion or $210 billion annually from 2016 to 2030 for climate change-adjusted infrastructure investments. However, with a financing gap estimated at $102 billion per year for selected Southeast Asian countries from 2016 to 2020, the need for private sector financing to fill the gap was already critical even before the pandemic.

With energy having been identified as an enabler of the socio-economic pillar of Kenya’s Vision 2030, the country has set an ambitious target of achieving 100% renewable energy by 2030 and seeks to deliver universal access to electricity for households and businesses by 2022. To achieve these targets, investment of $2.75 billion is required, with an additional $58 million every year after 2022.

In developing countries, governments may not have the financial means for generous stimulus packages, or may even turn to supporting fossil fuel infrastructure. For 2020, the IEA expects the largest drop in global energy investment in history, a fall of 20% compared with last year.

Renewable energy capacity, excluding large hydro, grew by a record 184 GW in 2019. This was 20 GW, or 12 per cent, more than new capacity added in 2018. Yet the 2019 dollar investment was only 1 per cent higher, at $282.2 billion. Nations and corporations have made clean energy commitments over the next decade. Analyzing them, UNEP’s report finds commitments for 826 GW of new non-hydro renewable power capacity by 2030, at a likely cost of around $1 trillion.

The spring months of 2020 showed an active financing market with 33 separate M&A-related transactions announced.

Although the impact of green banking has been relatively small to date, there is significant potential to scale, which would have major impacts on the availability of financing for sustainable infrastructure around the world.