Financing a Climate-Resilient Future: International Seminar on Promoting A Sustainable Banking Sector in Line with the Paris Agreement—was held on 10 September 2019 in Beijing,
which was co-organized by Greenovation Hub (Ghub), Green Finance Committee, China Society for Finance and Banking and Heinrich Böll Stiftung Beijing Representative Office. Around 40 participants from financial institutions, universities, think tanks and NGOs attended the workshop and shared their knowledge and experiences in aligning sustainable banking practices with the Paris Agreement.
The workshop consists of two sessions: the morning session focused on the policies and strategies of international and national development finance institutions for implementing climate goals. Experts from AIIB, IFC, World Bank, Industrial Bank, ICBC, E3G, AFD and CDB shared concrete strategies and policy ideas; the afternoon session invited experts from Myanmar and Vietnam to present specific cases in the fields of energy transition, renewable energy investment and financing in recipient countries.
Mr. YE Yanfei, Director General of the Policy Research Bureau of CBRC, highlighted China’s recent progress in promoting renewable energy. In 21 Chinese financial institutions green loans represent around 10% of all loans. Among them, the Industrial Bank and China Development Bank have higher percentages. 3/4 of the green loans in China are related to climate financing and investment; including 45% in railway construction, 20% in renewable energy and 7% in improving industrial energy efficiency.
Awareness, technical limitations, pricing, coordination and limited funding are the five major constraints that climate financing is facing. Participants noticed that compared to multilateral development banks, national financial institutions have done less to align their strategies and policies with the Paris Agreement. A communication and knowledge sharing network has been established through the workshop, which could connect key stakeholders with Chinese and international financial institutions and promote their future cooperation.
The workshop is an output of the “Environmental and Social Risk Management for Chinese Overseas Financing” program of Greenovation Hub, which has been supported by Heinrich Böll Stiftung Beijing Representative Office for four years. Both hbs Beijing Office and Ghub would like to promote a diverse and effective cooperation network for communication among different stakeholders and raise awareness on environmental and social risk management of Chinese overseas investment. As one of the key outputs, the Handbook on the Environmental Risk Management in China's Overseas Investment has been published in April of 2018.