Southern China leads way with Greater Bay Area climate funding launch pad
- Nansha district in Guangzhou becomes the first place in the country to open its platform to finance climate-related projects
- Applications have already been received for US$10 billion in investment, report says
A number of banks, securities firms, insurance companies and fund managers have signed up to take part in the scheme and assess the climate-friendliness of each project.
The state-owned Shanghai Securities Journal reported that 95 projects designed to combat climate change had submitted funding applications to the scheme for a total investment of 72.7 billion yuan (US$10 billion).
“We need to proactively include more high-emissions industries into the country’s carbon market,” vice environment minister Zhao Yingmin said at the launch.
“We should enrich the types of financial products and increase trading agents in the carbon market, because an effective and active Chinese carbon market can have more influence in the world.”
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Nansha is one of 23 centres across the country granted approval for the pilot schemes last year and is charged with developing a new model for cross-region cooperation within the Greater Bay Area on climate change financing.
The Greater Bay Area encompasses nine cities in Guangdong province, and the two special administrative regions of Hong Kong and Macau, which have their own currency, infrastructure and operational systems.
In a joint report this month on Greater Bay Area integration, global consulting firm Ernst & Young and Phoenix TV said more work needed to be done to align regional strategies with national policy.
“Relevant authorities and stakeholders [need] to work towards establishing the Greater Bay Area unified carbon market in line with mainland [China’s] policies,” the report said.
The report also said stronger cooperation between Hong Kong and the Guangzhou Futures Exchange on carbon market development would enable Hong Kong to act as China’s offshore risk management centre.
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At the launch on Friday, Mi Jinxiang, general manager at China Construction Bank’s Guangzhou branch, urged stakeholders to step up improvements to climate financing models and tools to foster cooperation across the region.
“It’s necessary to introduce carbon accounting, information disclosure and a standardised system for ESG, so that a more simplified service can be provided to companies that have obviously reduced emissions,” he said, referring to environment, social and governance frameworks.
Wu Zezhi, chief investment officer for Orient Securities, said financial companies would look at three areas when determining funding for climate change projects.
“First, we need to reference the guidelines of overseas regulations for strengthening the management and information disclosure of climate change-related issues,” he said.
“Second, there is a need to actively explore financial products that are climate change friendly and third, China has to build up systems that can tackle climate change-related risk management.”
