“Ethical Markets supports China’s Guidelines for green finance and welcomes News on Sustainable Finance from the Grantham Research Institute at LSE. We are also happy to join the campaign for a Just Transition to the more just and inclusive, cleaner transition to the knowledge-richer green economies now growing worldwide.
We have been tracking private investments in this green global transition annually since 2009 in our Green Transition Scoreboard ®, with our 2018 report : “CAPTURING CO2 WHILE IMPROVING HUMAN NUTRITION & HEALTH“. We found a cumulative $9.3 trillion privately invested and cite research and start-up companies in plant-based foods, capturing CO2 by expanding use of salt-loving food crops, e.g. quinoa and china’s salt-tolerant rice, grown largely on degraded, unused and desert lands without pesticide or fertilizers in 22 countries. This report is free and downloadable from www.ethicalmarkets.com along with its companion TV program.
Hazel Henderson, Editor“
OCTOBER 2018
This month our Sustainable Finance Leadership Series of commentaries features Professor Wang Yao on China’s green finance strategy. In addition we explore how to put climate change within the broader context of inclusive growth and sustainable development and invite investors to sign up to support the Just Transition.
China’s green finance strategy: much achieved, further to go
Wang Yao, Director General of the International Institute of Green Finance, Central University of Finance and Economics, Beijing.
China’s embrace of green finance has been one of the key factors driving sustainability considerations to the top of the global financial policy agenda. In this post for LSE’s Sustainable Finance Leadership Series, Professor Wang Yao takes stock of the progress made since 2016 and identifies the steps that still need to be taken to bring finance in line with the country’s ambitions to build an ‘ecological civilisation’.
In 2012, the Chinese government approved a far-reaching policy goal of building an ‘ecological civilization’. This goal is driven partly by the urgent need to clean up the consequences of rapid industrialisation, as well as by the desire to build a more harmonious growth model.
Realising this ambition requires green finance – the full range of financial services that support the environmental transformation of the economy and the efficient use of resources. The scale of capital required is immense: an estimated RMB 3–4 trillion (US$ 433–577 billion) each year in green investments from 2015 to 2020, according to research by the Ministry of Ecology and Environment and the China Council for International Cooperation on Environment and Development.
The Guidelines for establishing the green financial system, a comprehensive plan to channel this investment, were released on 31 August 2016 by seven finance-related ministries and commissions, including the People’s Bank of China (PBOC). Four days later, the Chinese government hosted its first G20 summit in Hangzhou, where, for the first time in the G20’s history, all heads of state agreed on the shared goal of promoting green finance.
Financing the transition: how investors can help make climate action inclusive
Nick Robins, Vonda Brunsting, David Wood and William Irwin outline how investors are starting to put climate change within the broader context of inclusive growth and sustainable development.
Statement of Investor Commitment to Support a Just Transition on Climate Change
We now have 39 investors representing US$3.5tr in assets signed up to support the Just Transition. Sign up your organisation here.
A crisis of confidence at the Green Climate Fund?
Researcher, Marion Feist, looks at how can confidence in green finance fund can be restored.