Bridging the Gap: Anouj Mehta on Transition Finance in Southeast Asia

This interview was originally published on the Southeast Asia Information Platform for the Energy Transition (SIPET).

A decade after the Paris Climate Agreement, Southeast Asia’s financial sector is increasingly focusing on supporting investments that contribute to decarbonization. Transition finance has emerged as a critical enabler, bridging the gap between today’s fossil-based economies and the clean energy future that governments and corporations aspire to achieve through their net-zero commitments.

In this conversation for SIPET Connect, Peter du Pont, Senior Advisor on the GIZ CASE project speaks with Anouj Mehta, Director of ADB’s Thailand Resident Mission. Mehta, who is the architect of the $2 billion ASEAN Catalytic Green Finance Facility (ACGF). He shares insights on how transition finance can be scaled up effectively. With extensive experience in structuring financial solutions for green infrastructure, Mehta discusses the realities of mobilizing private capital, the role of development finance institutions (DFIs), and the innovations required to make transition finance work for Southeast Asia.

SIPET Connect: Transition Finance is gaining traction globally, but how would you define it in the context of Southeast Asia? How does it differ from green or sustainable finance?

Anouj Mehta: Transition finance is fundamentally about mobilizing finance that can incentivize public and private sector entities to make the shift to much more resilient and environmentally sustainable practices than they currently deploy so as to lead to a much lower carbon footprint. This can be across all sectors whether in manufacturing, agribusiness, infrastructure, or services. Unlike green finance for projects that are immediately eligible and sustainable per green taxonomies, transition finance focuses on those hard-to-abate sectors, which require much more support in establishing a pathway towards the final goal of low emissions and resilience.

Read the full interview