Droughts in Thailand, flooding in Pakistan, heat waves in India, and tsunamis in Taiwan; Asia is the world’s most climate disaster affected region, with almost half of the world’s natural disaster-related deaths taking place here in 2023.
It’s against this backdrop that the Asian Development Bank wants to become “Asia’s climate bank,” financing a range of projects across infrastructure, energy, transport, and urban health to support adaptation and mitigation, said Paul Houston, the bank’s senior human resource specialist. To do that, it needs staff with relevant expertise and experience.
“The impacts of climate change are being really felt quite heavily in the region,” he said, speaking to Devex from the bank’s headquarters in Manila, the Philippines, where it was 45 degrees Celsius.“Climate skills, climate finance, energy transition, and those types of things will be important.”