Climate Bonds can fund the rapid transition to a low-carbon economy
Climate Bonds Initiative’s 8 points plan to promote the transition to a low-carbon economy
- Create deal flow – Bond investors need scale; renewable energy and energy efficiency projects (markets) need to be aggregated into larger offerings suitable for the appetite of the big investors;
- Engineer investment grade offerings – High demand of low risk investments. Renewable energy investments are seen as a “novelty”, we need to change this perception. In order to do that, a grand pact between governments and institutional investors is needed. Governments engineer a stream of large scale investment opportunities and does everything it can do to make sure they are investment grade; in return institutional investors turn on the taps;
- Be clever about public sector risk-sharing – Financial leverage (e.g. policy risk insurance and currency risk insurance) and regulatory leverage.
- Build green enabling institutions – Green Investment Units and Banks are needed;
- Give tax incentives for climate bonds – very little treasury loss can be a big boost to investment;
- Build an economic recovery narrative – the transition to a green economy revamps our economy across every sector and addresses the climate change threat;
- Use Climate Bond Standards as a screening and preferencing tool – a tool that helps investors monitor and verify the climate effectiveness of their investments;
- Make it easy for politicians – bond investors and business issuers have to get better at packaging politically sellable solutions, help politicians see how they can successfully sell those plans to voters
Download the Climate Bonds Initiative 8 point Plan
Sean Kidney, in Doha at the COP18, on how private capital can finance the transition to the low-carbon economy
Watch Nick Silver explaining how climate bonds can finance the transition to a low-carbon economy
A fresh initiative
“If you have a choice between two bonds with the same yield, why would you not buy the one that helps to tackle climate change?”
The Climate Bonds Initiative is an investor-focused NGO working to mobilize debt capital makets for climate change solutions.
Further information:
- 4 page introduction - who we are, what we’re doing and why.
- 20 page discussion paper.
- The Climate Bond Standards and Certification Scheme. Or jump to the FAQs.
- Bonds and Climate Change – the State of the Market 2012. (2013 edition will be out mid-year)
Video presentations
Interview on Canada’s CBC current affairs show.
Speech to the 2012 Bloomberg New Energy Finance Summit in New York
Interview on Canada’s Business News Network
