As the world’s most populous region and the most vulnerable to climate risks, Asia is at the centre of a paradigm shift towards low carbon green growth. This shift must incorporate economic and social inclusion, and environmental sustainability in the strategic policy making and implementation. Many developing Asian economies have started this paradigm shift, bringing clean energy access to poor, stressing industrial competitiveness, developing green technology markets, and supporting decent job generation. What has been the initial experience with the paradigm shift? What can policy-makers learn from the experience and further advance the policy agenda? How can an action focussed approach be structured to support the continuing policy learning and advancement? This article paper addresses these questions. Drawing on multi-country studies by a number of Asian national research institutes, the paper proposes a meta-policy analysis approach to support the policy learning. Using this approach, the paper identifies five factors that have clearly contributed to initial successful introduction of the new approach. These include (i) a strong state articulation of low carbon green growth strategy, (ii) decentralized policy making and implementation, (iii) sectoral targets to link energy efficiency improvement with technology innovations, (iv) high levels of private sector participation, and (v) regional cooperation for harnessing financial resources. The article concludes by recommending a regularized process to continue with the meta-analysis approach for policy learning and action.
