UCCRTF at the Asia Clean Energy Forum 2019
July 2019
The Asia Clean Energy Forum (ACEF) was held at the ADB headquarters between 17–21 June with more than 1,200 registered participants. This year’s program had five thematic sessions—Energy and Liveable Cities; Energy and Water Sustainability; Energy and Rural Poverty Alleviation; Energy and Innovative Finance; and Clean Energy Trends and Directions. The Urban Climate Change Resilience Trust Fund organized four sessions under the Energy and Liveable Cities track.
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The four sessions included twenty speakers from fifteen countries on a diverse urban and energy subject areas and were attended by about 450 participants. Four sessions under this track explored practical applications of energy in cities, linking it to ADB’s Strategy 2030 operational priorities. 
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A first for ACEF, ADB project officers spoke at the beginning of each session to set the context of the discussion and draw a greater focus on building cross-sector collaboration.
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Watch a video of Virinder Sharma, senior urban development specialist of the Sector Advisor Service Cluster (SDSC) of the Sustainable Development and Climate Change Department (SDCC) at the ADB, introducing the sessions under track 1:
AUTHOR
UCCRTF Secretariat
The productive sessions provided a lot of useful information for participants, and the key messages from each session are summarized below:
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Session 1.1: Urban Energy Planning for Smarter Utilities. Integrated planning and good business models are essential to delivering the sustainable urban infrastructure in energy and water utilities, while data accessibility is vital for producing good analytical insight.
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Session 1.2: Scaling Up E-Mobility as a Platform for Sustainable Urban Transportation. E-mobility solutions must be aligned with urban planning. Therefore, effective policy and stronger cross-sector working models are required. Public-private collaboration is necessary to achieve speed to market in the region.
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Session 1.3: Heating and Cooling for Buildings in Cities. Building energy efficiency measures continue to be the key focus, while highly responsive and flexible provision of energy services for heating and cooling in buildings are becoming more important. Building codes need to be updated more frequently along with the rapid technology development and innovation.
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Session 1.4: New Energy Solutions: Multi-Benefit Opportunities for Cities. Clean energy and transport systems deliver benefits beyond meeting the Paris Agreement and result in reductions in human health risks and associated costs. A multi-stakeholder approach is needed to harness local energy resources and maximize the clean air benefits of policies that enable liveable cities.
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With continued rapid urbanization, our future is defined by livable and resilient cities that benefit all citizens, especially the poor and vulnerable. To deliver a sustainable urban infrastructure, different sectors need to work as one team and interconnections need to be driven institutionally with the aid of data and evidence-driven planning tools and methods. Indicators, incentives, and institutions will help drive this change.