Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank
This page is part of the E3G Public Bank Climate Tracker Matrix, our tool to help you assess the Paris alignment of public banks, MDBs and DFIs.
Metric | Summary |
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Some progress – AIIB is gradually doing more and more promotion of green finance among market participants and institutions. |
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Unaligned – The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) has funded more fossil fuels than renewables between 2016-2019. For every $1 the AIIB provided to fossil fuels, $0.7 went to renewables and $0.3 went to energy networks (transmission and distribution). |
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Unaligned – Limited or weak commitments on nature based solutions and biodiversity. |
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Some progress – Risk management approach does not include assessing climate risk at project level. The AIIB uses ThinkHazard! Tool to enhance client climate resilience. |
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Unaligned – AIIB does not have a standalone climate strategy. The Corporate Strategy briefly mentions climate change. The AIIB has announced that it will fully align with the Paris agreement by July 2023. |
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Unaligned – AIIB’s sectoral strategies provide sporadic insights into the integration of climate change into various sectors. However, despite the strategies being among the most recent amongst all MDBs, Paris alignment is not mentioned. There is no strategic approach to mainstream climate into AIIB’s sectoral lending. |
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Some progress – The Bank has the potential to introduce transformational practices amongst the MDBs, but there has not yet been enough time to judge the effect of their efforts. |
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Unaligned – AIIB has included energy access within its wider energy strategy, but has not set a Bank-specific target and progress monitoring does not account for clean or modern energy. |
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Some progress – The importance of energy efficiency is recognised but this needs operationalising. |
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Unaligned – No formal coal exclusion policy. Lacks downstream oil and gas policies. Upstream oil and gas permitted. |
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Unaligned – Portfolio-level monitoring of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions for energy sector only. No project-level reporting yet (although some projects in pipeline) and no targets. |
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Some progress – The AIIB has started to apply internal carbon pricing systematically to energy projects only since July 2020. |
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Not applicable – AIIB does not have country-level strategies. |
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Not applicable – AIIB does not provide technical assistance, but recognition of role in energy sector. |
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Some progress – Transparency of financial intermediary lending needs improving. |
Top recommendations
- AIIB should create a standalone climate change strategy, fully linked to its Corporate Strategy.
- AIIB should look to implement further climate risk management systems across its portfolio and establish a project-level climate risk process.
- AIIB should actively seek to translate its management’s position on fossil fuels and specifically coal into its official lending policy.
- AIIB should consider setting up technical assistance programmes, including climate-related technical assistance to address upstream barriers in client countries.
Leadership area
The AIIB leadership has gone to great lengths to make clear that it has no coal in its pipeline and has no intention to finance any coal projects. This shows leadership within Asian financial institutions, and other development banks should follow suit. The President of the AIIB, Jin Liqun, has stated that “there are no coal projects in our pipeline, and we will not consider any proposals if we are concerned about their environmental and reputational impact“. AIIB Vice-Presidents Joachim von Amsberg and Thierry de Longuemar have both also stated that the Bank will not fund coal. AIIB has also shown leadership on climate bonds and on raising awareness of environmental, social and governance issues in the Asia region.
Last updated: November 2020.