Chuck Baclagon is the Asia regional finance campaigner for 350.org.

Our continent is on fire. Not figuratively – literally. From record-breaking heatwaves across Central Asia to parched lands and collapsing harvests in Southeast and South Asia, the climate crisis is not some distant threat. It’s already here, carving deep scars across our communities. And if we’re honest, it’s not a disaster of nature – it’s a disaster of decisions.

That’s why this year’s Asian Development Bank (ADB) Annual General Meeting – taking place in Milan this week – matters. As the region’s second-biggest source of development finance, the ADB holds enormous sway over how Asia and the Pacific will transition away from fossil fuels – or whether they will at all.

To its credit, the ADB has formally excluded direct investments in coal – a long-overdue response to years of sustained pressure from communities and advocates. But in practice, this shift amounts to a half-measure that leaves the door open to continued fossil fuel dependency.

While the ADB distances itself from coal, it quietly endorses fossil gas as a transitional fuel, with its current energy policy allowing for gas financing under certain conditions. From 2016 to 2020, over 96% of the bank’s fossil fuel financing – amounting to $4.7 billion – went to gas projects. Independent monitoring services like Energy Policy Tracker confirm ongoing support for oil and gas.

Swapping coal for gas

This shift isn’t abstract – it’s unfolding in real places, with real consequences. In the Philippines, the ADB’s Energy Transition Mechanism may be retiring coal plants, but it has done nothing to stop the surge of LNG terminals and gas-fired power stations threatening the fragile Verde Island Passage. Entire coastal communities now face displacement and destruction of their livelihoods.

In Bangladesh, cancelled coal projects are simply being replaced by gas infrastructure on Maheshkhali Island, uprooting islanders and deepening the country’s debt burden. In Indonesia, the bank boasts of early coal retirement, while backing fossil gas expansion. Projects like the Tangguh LNG development in Papua violate Indigenous lands and endanger ecosystems.

At energy security talks, US pushes gas and derides renewables

This is not a transition. Rather, cloaking fossil gas in deceptive language like “transition” or “bridge” fuel is clever word-play to justify continued harm. You don’t build a bridge to a burning house. Fossil gas is mostly methane – a greenhouse gas that traps more than 80 times the heat of carbon dioxide over a 20-year period. Investing in gas today locks countries into climate chaos tomorrow.

The science is unequivocal. To keep global warming below 1.5°C, global carbon emissions must fall by 45 percent from 2010 levels by 2030 and reach net zero by 2050. That means coal, oil and gas must stay in the ground: with no exceptions, no new excuses. But a real energy transition is not just about meeting Paris Agreement targets. It’s about changing development pathways so that our communities can thrive, not merely endure, in a world shaped by climate change.

Invest in decentralised renewables

The ADB has a critical role to play. Its investments can either entrench fossil fuel dependence – or help communities build truly just and low-carbon energy systems. To do that, the ADB must stop backing ‘false’ solutions – not just fo