The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has said it plans to channel around 700 million USD from two new investment funds to members that are developing countries to tackle climate change.

The move is “part of a broad global initiative to help developing countries meet the cost of actions needed to combat climate change,” said a press release by the bank, which is based in Manila, the Philippines.

Donor countries, including Australia , France , Germany , Japan , the Netherlands , Norway , Spain , Sweden , Switzerland , the United Kingdom and the United States , pledged over 6.1 billion USD in 2008 to the Clean Technology Fund and Strategic Climate Fund, the press release reported.

Both climate investment funds (CIF) are being made available to multilateral development banks, including the ADB, for climate change-related expenditures, it added.

The Clean Technology Fund will support the deployment of low carbon energy technologies, such as wind, solar, hydro and geo-thermal power, as well as energy saving measures for industry, commercial buildings and municipalities.

The Strategic Climate Fund will support pilot programmes on climate resilience, forestry programmes and stepping up the use of renewable energies in low-income countries, to demonstrate how to deal with and adapt to climate change, plus interventions that can be expanded and replicated in the future.

The two funds are designed to be interim financing tools and will be discontinued once the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change completes its deliberations on a new global programme for addressing climate change, as well as the new financial mechanisms needed to support it.

The ADB has been investing heavily in programmes and projects designed to help countries cut down the use of fossil fuels and in 2008 it spent around 1.7 billion USD on clean energy projects, up from 230 million USD in 2003, said the press release, adding that it is now targeting annual investments of 2 billion USD by 2013./.