LocationsOur focus
UNDP's Environment and Energy Work in the Asia-Pacific Region
The call to action
The world is currently facing a triple planetary crisis: climate change, nature loss and pollution
UNDP’s Strategic Plan (2022-25) presents the ambition and determination necessary to effect the change and impact at scale to achieve the 2030 agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Success during the current Strategic Plan period will require strong partnerships to deliver on the moonshots of helping 100 million people to escape multi-dimensional poverty, support 500 million people to gain access to clean energy, and promoting over US$1 trillion of public expenditure and private capital investment in the SDGs. The magnitude of development challenges in the nature, climate, energy, and chemicals and waste sectors requires coordinated efforts to deliver integrated solutions, as no single entity can achieve these goals alone.
Our work
The environment and energy portfolio in the Asia-Pacific region
UNDP’s Asia-Pacific Environment and Energy portfolio drives transformative action across nature, climate, energy, and chemicals and waste. We partner with governments, communities, and the private sector to deliver impactful projects and provide robust policy support. Together, we implement integrated solutions to tackle the region’s most pressing challenges: accelerating climate action, halting nature loss, and enabling sustainable energy transitions. By leveraging innovative financing, evidence-based policy guidance, and cutting-edge technologies, we reduce emissions, safeguard biodiversity, and enhance resilience. Our efforts align with the SDGs, fostering inclusive, nature-positive growth for a healthier, more sustainable future.
Snapshot of the Asia-Pacific environment and energy portfolio
The region has an active environment portfolio of more than 201 projects valued at $1.31 billion. While the majority of the portfolio is funded by vertical funds (GEF, SCCF, LDCF, GCF, MLF, Adaptation Fund), projects funded by other partners (Japan, Korea, EU, etc.) are increasing.
Technical teams
Nature
Advancing Efforts For People and Planet
The UNDP Nature Hub is dedicated to advancing sustainable development by embedding nature into policy, planning, and implementation across all sectors. Nature is foundational for sustainable development, underpinning good governance, green growth and resilience in every country – not solely in biodiversity hotspots. This represents UNDP's organizational commitment to placing nature at the heart of solutions that address climate change, sustainable livelihoods, disaster risk reduction, human rights, peace building, and food, water and energy security. Within this global structure, the Nature Portfolio in the Asia-Pacific region embodies this vision through integrated and inclusive actions that foster nature-positive human development across 30 countries.
Recognizing nature as the foundation of human well-being and economic prosperity, UNDP’s Nature Pledge reinforces its commitment to supporting countries in achieving global biodiversity goals and the 2030 Agenda. The Nature Pledge guides the Nature portfolio’s efforts to transform how nature is valued, financed, and integrated into policies and practices, advancing an inclusive approach to nature conservation and sustainable development.
The Nature Portfolio in the Asia-Pacific region brings together a wide range of dynamic initiatives across four thematic areas, comprising an active portfolio of 97 projects across 23 countries with a total grant of $929 million and co-financing of $2.96 billion. These projects align with UNDP’s global mission to deliver transformative impacts by conserving ecosystems, promoting inclusive growth, and advancing gender equality through nature-based/nature-positive solutions. The Asia-Pacific Nature Portfolio is closely linked to the Nature Hub’s thematic focus:
- Ecosystems and Biodiversity: Ecosystems and biodiversity are the life-support systems of our planet, underpinning critical sectors that drive economic growth and human well-being. In the region, UNDP’s work goes beyond protection—it aims to restore and enhance ecosystems, fostering a shift from nature-negative to nature-positive development. By prioritizing the sustainable management of biodiversity and ecosystems, we drive blue and green transitions that strengthen climate resilience, support sustainable food systems, and create opportunities for inclusive economic growth. This holistic approach ensures that biodiversity is not only conserved, but also leveraged as a powerful engine for sustainable development, benefiting both people and the planet.
- Water and Oceans: Sustainable development hinges on the protection and restoration of marine and freshwater ecosystems. Through integrated governance efforts, UNDP supports the sustainable management of water and ocean resources for improved resilience, sustainable blue-green economies and jobs.
- Food & Agricultural Commodity Systems: By promoting sustainable agricultural practices, fostering biodiversity within food systems, and supporting nature-positive supply chains, UNDP's work enhances food security, rural livelihoods, and habitat conservation.
- Local Action: Empowering local communities, indigenous peoples, and key stakeholders is central to nature conservation. UNDP strengthens local leadership and governance, builds capacity, and fosters sustainable resource use at the grassroots level.
Policy and Planning - building an enabling environment for nature-positive and climate-resilient outcomes: UNDP's work in the region combines both nature and climate dimensions to build sustainable policies that drive systemic change. By aligning efforts to achieve nature conservation, climate adaptation, and resilience, UNDP supports countries to integrate these elements into their development agendas through:
- National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plans (NBSAPs): Assisting countries to plan, implement, and align their biodiversity strategies with the Global Biodiversity Framework, ensuring a comprehensive approach to nature conservation and sustainable development [18 countries supported].
- Biodiversity Finance Plans: Bridging finance gaps for biodiversity by mobilizing resources to support long-term conservation efforts, and developing sustainable financing solutions that align with national priorities [29 countries supported].
- Climate and Nature Nexus: UNDP’s integrated support to countries includes the climate promise and nature offer, providing comprehensive policy and planning assistance to achieve Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) under the Paris Agreement while advancing nature-based solutions and assuring linkages with NBSAPs. This integrated approach supports policy coherence towards sustainable development through actions that mitigate climate change impacts and enhance biodiversity [5 countries]
- Nature Financing: Facilitating access to diverse financial mechanisms such as conservation trust funds, the Global Fund for Coral Reefs, the Nature Investment Facility (positioned as the new investment arm of BIOFIN) and the Tiger Landscape Investment Fund, as well as leveraging nature-related financial disclosures to secure sustainable finance for nature-positive outcomes [10 countries supported].
- Blue Economy Initiatives: Promoting strategies for sustainable ocean use that enhance economic growth, improve livelihoods, and safeguard marine ecosystems, aligning economic activities with climate resilience and conservation [6 countries supported].
Driving impact across the region: The portfolio's initiatives extend beyond individual projects; they are part of a larger effort to embed nature across development policies, finance, and local action. This holistic approach aims to:
- Place Nature at the Heart of Development: By recognizing the value of natural capital, enhancing biodiversity conservation, and restoring ecosystems, the portfolio ensures that nature is a driving force behind sustainable development.
- Empower People and Communities: Engaging communities, women, and indigenous peoples, UNDP fosters local stewardship over natural resources, creating sustainable livelihoods and creating nature-based job opportunities.
Deliver on the UNDP Nature Pledge: The portfolio’s work in the region contributes directly to the Nature Pledge’s commitments—shifting global narratives, catalysing financial flows for nature-positive actions, and integrating nature into policies and practices to achieve the SDGs.
Climate
The Climate Hub's mission is to support country-driven action to deliver the goals of the Paris Agreement. The Hub is UNDP’s team within BPPS whose core mandate is to support countries on the implementation of their climate agenda. The Hub is the engine behind the Climate Promise, UNDP's framework of support and externally facing brand that ties together all of the Hub's climate-related work to advance the objectives of the Paris Agreement. It is centred around 3 pillars: Ambition, Acceleration and Inclusivity.
The Climate Promise represents the UN system’s largest portfolio of support on climate action, working in more than 140 countries. This portfolio is worth over $2 billion in grant financing.
The Climate Hub is comprised of the five thematic pillar teams (mitigation, adaptation, climate strategies and policy, climate and forests, and carbon markets) and four functional pillar teams (communication, operations, intelligence and innovation, and global advocacy and engagement). Members of the Hub are located at the global and regional level.
Climate Strategies and Policy: Urgently addressing the climate crisis requires integrated solutions that place climate action at the heart of the 2030 Agenda and sustainable development. UNDP’s Climate Strategies and Policy Team helps countries take this ambitious step by translating global and regional policy processes into national decision-making and action on the ground. The team focuses specifically on Nationally Determined Contributions, readiness, long-term strategies/net zero, UNFCCC processes, transparency, and the preparation of National Communications and Biennial Transparency Reports. A strong focus is on strengthening and accelerating the design and implementation of commitments under UNFCCC processes and the Paris Agreement.
Climate Change Adaptation: UNDP has a strong track record of supporting countries and their vulnerable populations to increase their resilience and adaptive capacities and reduce their vulnerabilities to evolving climate change risks and impacts. Over the past two decades, UNDP has supported developing countries, including Least Developed Countries and Small Island Developing States, to implement their adaptation priorities, from enhancing food security, to increasing the protection of ecosystems, to rolling out vital early warning systems. Building on the experiences and lessons from a portfolio of over $697 million of adaptation projects and programmes across 25 countries (11 LDCs and 9 SIDS), UNDP will continue to support countries’ access and catalyse public and private finance to implement their adaptation priorities. UNDP remains committed to building on established science and data (including the work of the IPCC) to support countries accelerate adaptation.
Climate Change Mitigation: To avoid an irreversible climate crisis, we need to halve global emissions by 2030, and achieve carbon-neutral economies by 2050. Reducing greenhouse gas emissions – i.e. climate change mitigation - is essential to fulfilling commitments to the Paris Agreement and limiting global mean temperature increase to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels. All sectors, including energy, transportation, industry, forests, and land-use/agriculture must make a meaningful contribution towards achieving carbon neutrality. In the Asia-Pacific region, UNDP has 23 active vertical fund projects with a total grant amount of $113 million. In addition, there is a committed pipeline of projects totalling $35 million in allocated budget. These projects are dispersed across 19 countries in the region. UNDP CCM projects cover key thematic areas such as renewable energy, energy efficiency, sustainable transport, and green cities.
Climate and Forests Programme: Forests provide abodes and livelihood for over one billion people (including many indigenous peoples), as well as hosting the largest share of the world's biodiversity and providing essential ecosystem services, including water and carbon storage. Deforestation and forest degradation contribute significantly to climate change; together they represent about a fifth of current global greenhouse gas emissions. REDD+ policies and finance are indispensable to mitigate climate change and set nations and communities on the path toward sustainable development. REDD+ represents an innovative approach for sustainable development, offering a gateway for climate finance – a new source of finance for development, under a results-based philosophy.
The Climate and Forest portfolio is focused on:
- Accelerating ambition and implementation of NDCs through interventions in the Agriculture, Forestry and other Land Use (AFOLU) sector
- Supporting the channeling of REDD+ results-based finance
- Increasing access to climate finance for the forest sector
- Promoting equity and integrity in forest solutions
- Providing technical support in the implementation of the Land, Forest and Nature related interventions under UNDP’s the From Pledge to Impact programme
The global team supports a ≈$400 million portfolio of programmes across roughly 30 countries, which includes core portfolio/policy and field action in 12 countries, representing around 10 million km2 of tropical forests. This includes financing to indigenous peoples in seven countries. The work of the UNDP Climate & Asia-Pacific team supports a ≈$148 million portfolio of programmes across six countries.
Carbon Markets: UNDP’s vision is to make carbon markets work for host countries, NDCs and the SDGs. UNDP will focus on supporting supply-side integrity, to level the playing field for host countries, but also landowners, farmers, households and rights-holders, including indigenous peoples, local communities and women – who contribute to and benefit from carbon crediting programs. Asia is currently the region with the largest volume of voluntary carbon credits, which is an important means of international private climate finance flows to developing countries.
Chemicals and waste
Chemicals play an important role in the economy and are critical to the manufacturing of many products and the protection of human health. However, without proper management practices, chemicals and their hazardous wastes can pose significant risks to the environment and human health. The poorest members of the global community often face the highest risks; sound chemical and waste management can reduce the risks of exposure to hazardous chemicals and protect human health and the environment. The sound management of chemicals and wastes is an important component of UNDP’s efforts to achieve sustainable, inclusive, and resilient human development and Sustainable Development Goals.
Cooling is essential to human health, food security, economic productivity, and is becoming more important due to increasing global mean temperatures accompanied by more extreme heat waves. UNDP supports the efforts to mitigate the global warming impact of cooling by enhancing clean energy access, transitioning to low global warning potential (GWP) refrigerants, increasing energy efficiency of cooling units, and developing and promoting integrated cooling and heating solutions coupled with renewable energy.
Asia is a global manufacturing powerhouse, supporting critical industries like solar PV, batteries, cooling appliances, chemicals, metals and advanced technologies such as superconductors, while emerging asa recycling hub for metals and batteries to reduce reliance on imports. The region also faces growing demand for cooling due to rapid urbanization, economic growth, and rising temperatures, but this poses environmental challenges, including increased energy consumption and emissions of greenhouse gases and ozone-depleting substances. To meet SDGs, particularly SDG 12 on responsible consumption and production, SDG 13 on climate action, and SDG 3 on good health and well-being -- the region must improve resource efficiency,enhance product circularity, reducing toxic chemicals, and lower its industrial carbon footprint. Promoting alternatives to hazardous chemicals and ozone- and climate-friendly refrigerants are crucial to ensuring sustainable, resilient development and addressing climate change. .
The UNDP Chemicals and Waste Hub is a network of partners that work alongside countries to support the transformation towards sound management of chemicals to underpin sustainable human development and the shift to circular economy. The Hub also supports the development, testing and uptake of sustainable cooling solutions. Building upon a global portfolio of projects funded by GEF, MLF, and bilateral donors in 144 countries with a total value of $1.4 billion , the hub will continue supporting countries in Asia and the Pacific in resource mobilization, program/project/portfolio development/implementation/oversight, policy advisory services, technical assistance, institutional capacity-building, and the dissemination of knowledge, in all areas relevant to chemicals and waste management, circular economy transition and sustainable cooling.
Energy
Energy plays a critical role in achieving a high quality of life and realizing the Sustainable Development Goals outlined in the 2030 Agenda. Home to more than half of the world’s population and global energy consumption, Asia and the Pacific region will play a pivotal role in shaping global energy future. The transition to clean and sustainable energy is crucial in ensuring Asia and the Pacific’s efforts to combat climate change and transitioning to low-carbon pathways in the context of achieving a global goal of a net-zero carbon energy system by 2050.
UNDP, through the Sustainable Energy Hub, works with governments and partners to transform energy systems and support the integrated policy, technology and financial shifts that shape the region’s sustainable economic development. Our energy work in the region supports policy makers with high quality data and analysis to make informed decisions on a just and sustainable energy transition through addressing technology gaps, identifying innovative financial tools, and enhancing investor confidence in fragile contexts. We undertake this work via examining energy security and supply chains in the development context, linking energy efficiency solutions with decarbonizing energy intensive industries, and accelerating solutions at the nexus of responsible consumption, biodiversity and climate, innovation and digitalization.
UNDP’s energy support is structured around three pillars to guide the “Sustainable Energy for Development” pathway:
- Close the gap in energy access;
- Accelerate energy transition;
- Catalyse energy finance.
This is achieved through service offerings on policy support, data analytics/technologies, energy leadership, and innovative business models and financial mechanisms, all to support the projects on the ground by UNDP Country Offices and local partners. This includes policy support for just energy transition and energy governance, catalysing innovative finance and business models to attract sustainable energy investments, fostering South-South and triangular exchange and cooperation, de-risking for energy market transformation - particularly in SIDS and LDCs - and therefore encompasses a focus on off-grid, rural, and distributed renewable energy, which extends to the energy-health nexus, clean cooking solutions, and addressing the energy-fragility nexus.
As the co-chair of UN-Energy, UNDP’s energy offer in the region is delivered through close partnerships with UN agencies, international organizations, multilateral development banks, private sector associations, and civil society organizations.
