Last September, China announced that "carbon dioxide emissions will peak before 2030, and strive to achieve carbon neutrality before 2060". Subsequently, the Central Economic Work Conference in 2020 and the government work report in 20021made arrangements for the peak of carbon dioxide emission and the goal of carbon neutrality, and put forward the quantitative goals to be achieved.
Opportunities and challenges of green finance coexist.
In recent years, the scale of China's green financial market has been expanding. According to the data of China Banking Regulatory Commission, by the end of 2020, the green credit balance of 2 1 major banks in China exceeded 1 1 trillion yuan, and the loan balance and growth scale of green transportation, renewable energy and energy conservation and environmental protection projects were in the forefront.
The environmental benefits of green credit are gradually emerging. According to the proportion of credit funds in the total investment of green projects, 2 1 major banks' green credit can support saving more than 300 million tons of standard coal and reducing carbon dioxide equivalent by more than 600 million tons every year.
Thanks to the overweight of green financial policy, ESG theme bonds, mainly green bonds, have also developed rapidly. By the end of February, 20021,the issuance scale of green bonds that meet the domestic green certification standards has exceeded 1.2 trillion yuan, and the issuance scale has exceeded 200 billion yuan for five consecutive years since 20 16, which has played a positive role in supporting green and low-carbon transformation.
With the establishment of carbon neutrality, green finance needs to play a greater role. The 20021working meeting of China Banking Regulatory Commission mentioned that green credit, green insurance and green trust should be actively developed. Yi Gang, governor of the central bank, also made it clear a few days ago that the central bank has identified green finance as the key work to be promoted this year and during the Tenth Five-Year Plan period.
According to industry estimates, in order to achieve carbon neutrality, about 22 trillion yuan of investment will be needed by 2030. How to meet such a huge demand for green investment and financing requires the full participation of market funds including the financial system, which brings opportunities and challenges to China's green financial system.
Innovate green investment and financing mode
Since 20 12, the former CBRC has formulated and issued a series of policy documents, such as Green Credit Guidelines, to encourage and guide banks to vigorously develop green credit, increase support for green, low-carbon and circular economy, pay attention to preventing environmental and social risks, and improve environmental and social performance. At present, China has gradually established a set of green credit policy system.
On this basis, in recent years, the CBRC has encouraged banks and insurance institutions to innovate green financial products and services, actively develop energy-saving credit, green bonds and green credit asset securitization, explore mortgage financing of environmental rights and interests, and enhance the professional service ability and risk prevention and control ability of green finance.
On February 9 this year, the first batch of six carbon-neutral bonds in China were successfully issued in the inter-bank bond market, with a total issuance scale of 6.4 billion yuan. This is the world's first green bond product named after carbon neutrality. On March 18, China Development Bank issued the first carbon-neutral green financial bond "Bond Pass", with the issuance scale of about 20 billion yuan, which is the largest green bond issued in the whole market at present, to help achieve the peak of carbon dioxide emission and the goal of carbon neutrality. In addition, the first carbon-neutral securitization product, the first carbon-neutral M&A debt financing plan, the first green equity financing bill and other carbon financial products have successively landed on the market.
LAM Raymond, an analyst with Oriental Jincheng Research and Development Department, pointed out that carbon-neutral bonds are green bonds focusing on carbon emission reduction targets, and belong to one kind of green bonds. The innovative introduction of carbon-neutral bonds by banking institutions focusing on carbon emission reduction is conducive to promoting the development of the green bond market and giving full play to the function of green bonds, an important green financial product, in supporting green development.
At the same time, the credit investment and innovation of commercial banks are also increasing. Not long ago, Industrial Bank formulated a new five-year development plan, proposing that the bank's green financing balance will exceed 2 trillion yuan in 2025. Recently, the bank also launched the first agreed repurchase financing project with forward carbon sink products as the subject matter, and issued a loan of 20 million yuan to a forest farm in Fujian through the "carbon sink loan" comprehensive financing project.
There are also banks that combine local development characteristics and industrial support policies to continuously innovate and launch green credit products. For example, the photovoltaic loan of Postal Savings Bank, the green smart loan of China Construction Bank, the camellia loan of Agricultural Bank and the Green Garden loan of Huzhou Bank. Some leading institutions of green finance business are also constantly innovating in green supply chain finance, and green supply chain financial products such as green equipment, green product buyer's credit and factoring are constantly emerging.
Wang Yao, deputy secretary-general of the Green Finance Committee of the Chinese Finance Association, said that the emergence of innovative products such as environmental rights mortgage loans and carbon-neutral bonds showed the innovative vitality of financial institutions in the context of carbon neutrality. In the future, innovation should become an important starting point for developing green, and continuously enhance the ability of green finance to serve economic development.
Lu Zhengwei, chief economist of Industrial Bank, said that under the background of carbon neutrality, financial institutions need to constantly tilt towards low-carbon industries and strengthen their support for green industries. At the same time, based on the goal of strengthening emission reduction, green industries such as renewable energy, new energy vehicles, carbon capture and storage have great development potential and will also bring opportunities for sustainable development to banks.
Yif Wang, chief financial analyst of Everbright Securities Research Institute, said that in combination with the monetary policy in 2020, it is expected that relevant departments will further strengthen the assessment of green finance in the MPA (Macro Prudential Assessment) assessment system in 20021year, prompting banks to increase credit support for green finance. At the same time, climate investment and financing will increasingly become an important field of bank green finance, and the issuance of bank green financial bonds will also increase simultaneously.
Raise green standards and guard against green risks.
It is reported that there are still some difficulties for commercial banks to expand green financial business, such as incomplete unification of green standards in various industries and at home and abroad, and imperfect information disclosure system. At the same time, the impact of climate and environmental change has not been included in the systematic consideration of green financial risks, and these defects in system construction have invisibly increased the difficulty and risk of financial institutions participating in green financial projects.
Zhou Zipeng, deputy general manager of CICC Research Institute, believes that in order to better achieve the goal of green development, the state should uniformly formulate green financial standards, improve the green information disclosure mechanism, improve the "externality and internalization" policy incentives, comprehensively develop diversified green financial markets, strengthen the cultivation of green investment concepts, and take environmental risks into account in regulatory policies.
China Bank Insurance News learned that China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission is currently promoting investment and financing to deal with climate change. Last year, the China Banking Regulatory Commission and relevant departments jointly issued the Guiding Opinions on Promoting Investment and Financing for Climate Change, encouraging banks and insurance institutions to develop climate-friendly green financial products and increase financial support for climate change under the premise of controllable risks and sustainable business. At the same time, the CBRC also encourages financial institutions to learn from international good practical experience, strengthen environmental and social risk management of financing projects, improve information disclosure, and actively participate in international exchanges and cooperation in the field of green finance.
In the next step, the CBRC will also study and improve policies and measures related to green finance, encourage and guide banks and insurance institutions to actively develop green finance, standardize and innovate green financial products and services, increase the investment of financial resources in green industries, strengthen environmental and social risk management, improve the professional ability of green finance and the quality and efficiency of financial services, actively carry out investment and financing work in response to climate change, and provide strong financial support for achieving the goal of peak carbon dioxide emissions and carbon neutrality.
Political commissar Lu said that for commercial banks, one is to reduce the allocation of high-carbon assets, the other is to gradually establish a comprehensive climate and environmental risk management system, and the third is to strengthen the disclosure of climate-related information.