the newspaper interviewed| How should we actively develop green finance and implement financial policies that support green and low-carbon development in the future?

On July 18, the Third Plenary Session of the 20th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China adopted the "Decision of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on Further Comprehensively Deepening Reforms and Promoting Chinese-style Modernization."

Among them, it is mentioned in improving the macroeconomic governance system to deepen the reform of the financial system and actively develop green finance. In deepening the reform of the ecological civilization system, it was mentioned that green and low-carbon development mechanisms should be improved and fiscal, taxation, finance, investment, price policies and standard systems should be implemented to support green and low-carbon development.

At present, green finance has become an important driving force for my country's economic transformation and upgrading. How can green finance play a role in supporting green and low-carbon development? In order to further deepen reforms, how should we actively develop green finance and implement financial policies and standard systems that support green and low-carbon development in the future? A reporter from China Environment News interviewed Shi Yichen, a professor at the Central University of Finance and Economics, deputy dean of the International Institute of Green Finance of the Central University of Finance and Economics, and chief economist of China Finance Green Index (Beijing) Information Consulting Co., Ltd. on relevant issues.

Shi Yichen, Lecturer Professor of the Central University of Finance and Economics, Vice President of the International Institute of Green Finance of the Central University of Finance and Economics, Chief Economist of Zhongcai Green Index (Beijing) Information Consulting Co., Ltd., Sina Opinion Leader, Caixin ESG30 Expert, 2023 China Action ESG Communication Award "Individual Contribution Award of the Year".

China Environment News: What are the differences and connections between "deepening financial system reform and actively developing green finance" and "improving green and low-carbon development mechanisms, and implementing financial policies and standard systems that support green and low-carbon development"?

Shi Yichen:The former stands from the perspective of financial development, and the latter stands from the perspective of industrial structure and economic development. Because finance supports industrial development, the two complement each other internally and externally.

At the same time, the development of financial and industrial perspectives also has its own characteristics.

In 2024, the People's Bank of China and other departments jointly issued the "Guiding Opinions on Further Strengthening Financial Support for Green and Low-Carbon Development", which fully deploys the key tasks of future financial support for green and low-carbon development. It can be seen that To support green and low-carbon development, we not only play the supporting role of green finance, but also make relevant arrangements for the development of transformation finance. Combined with the needs of economic and social transformation and development, green finance will inevitably play an important pulling role in promoting the development of green industries. However, the complexity of transformation also shows the need for more diversified financial supplies. Furthermore, it is not only green finance, transformation finance, also include technology finance, digital finance, etc. Financial supplies with different focuses in the future will jointly enhance my country's financial ability to support green and low-carbon transformation.

As an important new productive force, green and low-carbon industries must not only do a good job in the "five big articles" of finance from a macro level in the future, but also need more changes in financial institutions and financial markets. For example, emerging fields need more patient capital blessing. Therefore, from this perspective, to support green and low-carbon transformation, we need not only green finance, but also the improvement of comprehensive financial capabilities.

China Environment News: In recent years, what policies has my country introduced to promote the development of green finance?

Shi Yichen:In recent years, in order to further promote the development of green finance, my country has introduced a series of policies with far-reaching impacts. These policies not only provide clear guidance for green finance, but also provide strong institutional guarantees and incentive mechanisms for it.

First of all, my government has made important arrangements in the top-level design of green finance. In August 2016, the People's Bank of China led seven departments to jointly issue the "Guiding Opinions on Building a Green Financial System", leading the systematic construction of the green financial system and becoming a programmatic document for building the "four beams and eight pillars" of the green financial system. Determine the development direction of green finance in terms of credit, green bonds, green stocks, green funds, green insurance and financing instruments for various environmental rights and interests. Financial institutions have therefore referred to this document to promote the exploration and innovation of green financial instruments in an orderly manner. In 2020, after my country's "double carbon" goal was proposed, green finance entered the fast lane of development. In top-level designs such as the "Opinions of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council on Completely, Accurately and Comprehensively Implementing New Development Concepts and Doing a Good Job in Carbon Peak and Carbon Neutralization" and "Notice of the State Council on Printing and Issuing the Action Plan for Carbon Peak Before 2030", the green financial system construction, product innovation, international cooperation and other aspects have been made to finally set the tone for the development of green finance in the new stage from a strategic perspective. In April this year, the People's Bank of China and other seven departments issued the "Guiding Opinions on Further Strengthening Financial Support for Green and Low-Carbon Development" to make in-depth arrangements for doing a good job in green finance. In May, the "Guiding Opinions on the Five Major Articles" of Banking and Insurance to Do a Good Job in Finance "issued by the State Financial Supervision and Administration clearly pointed out that it is necessary to focus on the" double carbon "goal and improve the green financial system. This policy emphasizes the important role of green finance in promoting the comprehensive green transformation of economic and social development, and provides financial institutions with a clear development direction.

Secondly, in order to smooth the path for green finance to support the development of related industries and guide financial institutions to increase support for green projects, in 2018, the People's Bank of China took the lead in carrying out the green finance standardization project, focusing on the general basic standards for green finance, green financial product standards, and green Credit rating evaluation standards, information disclosure standards, statistics and sharing standards, risk management and guarantee standards, etc. have been comprehensively researched and formulated, in accordance with "domestic unification, international integration, The principle of "clear and enforceable" promotes the construction of a green finance standard system in an orderly manner. In March this year, the National Development and Reform Commission, together with relevant departments, issued the "Guidance Catalogue for Green and Low-Carbon Transformation Industries (2024 Edition)", including energy-saving and carbon-reduction industries, environmental protection industries, resource recycling industries, energy green and low-carbon transformation, and ecology. The first-level catalogs of seven categories of protection, restoration and utilization, green infrastructure upgrades, and green services are also updated. At the same time, the explanations of the "Catalogue" are updated and arrangements are made for the application and implementation of the "Catalogue" are made. It is of great significance to leading the development direction of my country's green and low-carbon transformation related industries in the coming period, and also provides important support for the financial industry to better support green, low-carbon and high-quality development.

In addition, my government has also strengthened the supervision and evaluation of green finance. Through measures such as establishing a green credit statistical system and formulating green bond evaluation standards, we will ensure that the business activities of financial institutions in the field of green finance meet relevant standards and requirements. At the same time, it has also strengthened the evaluation and supervision of financial institutions 'environmental, social and governance (ESG) performance to guide financial institutions to actively fulfill their social responsibilities.

China Environment News: What is the current development status of green finance in my country? What are the characteristics?

Shi Yichen:At present, under the two-way efforts of policy guidance and market promotion, my country's green finance has become an important driving force for economic transformation and upgrading. The Local Green Finance Development Assessment Research Group of the International Institute of Green Finance of the Central University of Finance and Economics has been studying and releasing the Local Green Finance Development Index since 2018. Judging from the tracking situation over the years, the development of my country's green finance has entered a new stage, that is, from the original development pattern dominated by local pilots, it has extended coverage to various provinces, regions and municipalities across the country, and is realizing a wider range of applications and innovations. The latitude for developing green finance is more diverse. Among them, the provinces in the National Green Gold Reform Pilot Zone represented by Zhejiang and Guangdong are based on new starting points, carrying out new explorations and continuing to speed up, while other places represented by Shandong, Jiangsu and Shanghai are leading the development of green finance in a point-by-point manner, and Focus on local characteristics, create a new engine for green gold, implement it in practice and activate its effectiveness.

Focusing on the local level, first of all, regions with the highest level of financial development have a higher level of local green finance development. The development of green finance in various provinces and cities has a high correlation with the financial ecological foundation. When the level of macroeconomic development is high, the leverage of green finance will be stronger, and the effect of driving green development across the region will be more significant. If the financial system is relatively sound, it can better integrate diversified financial services such as green credit, green bonds, and green insurance, and give full play to the market-leading role of various financial instruments.

Secondly, the development level of the green finance reform and innovation pilot zone remains leading. In terms of policy system, the National Green Gold Reform Pilot Zone has attached great importance to the development goals of green finance in the "14th Five-Year Plan" and issued comprehensive guidance documents on green finance. The incentive and restraint policies have wider benefits, stronger implementation, and green finance capabilities. Construction and market measures are more complete. At the market practice level, the National Green Gold Reform Pilot Zone has demonstrated the tangible results of my country's green finance reform and innovation. By efficiently promoting regional green finance construction, it has given full play to the characteristic advantages of green finance reform and innovation at the local level, contributing to the national green finance reform and innovation. Accumulate experience.

Overall, with the implementation of green financial policies and the gradual maturity of the market, the scale of my country's green financial market has shown a steady growth trend. More and more financial institutions and enterprises are beginning to pay attention to and participate in the green financial market, providing strong financial support for the development of green industries. At the same time, green financial products and services also show diversified characteristics, including green bonds, green credit, green insurance, green funds, etc., meeting green financing needs at different levels.

China Environment News: What are the green financial products? What are the attributes of these products? How should we strengthen innovation in green financial products?

Shi Yichen:Green finance refers to economic activities that support environmental improvement, respond to climate change, and conserve and efficiently utilize resources. In 2016, the "Guiding Opinions on Building a Green Financial System" of the People's Bank of China and other seven departments pointed out that my country's green financial products mainly include green credit, green bonds, green stocks, green funds, green insurance, and environmental rights and interests represented by carbon finance. tool.

Green credit and green bonds are currently the most important green financial products in my country. Among them, green credit is implemented according to the "Guidance Catalogue for Green and Low-Carbon Transformation Industries (2024 Edition)". Borrowing companies must strictly abide by the use of loan funds and calculate the environmental benefits they generate. Relevant innovative credit products taking sustainably linked loans as an example will further adjust loan interest rates based on the environmental benefits of loan projects. Among all green financial products, green credit has relatively low entry barriers and risk factors.

Green bonds verify the use of raised funds according to the "Catalog of Green Bond Supporting Projects (2021 Edition)". Green bonds require issuers to pass independent third-party evaluation and certification before issuance, and regularly publish the use of raised funds and corresponding environmental benefits after issuance; Taking 2023 as an example, the average coupon rate of green bonds is 3.35%, the average issuance period is 2.92 years, and the average raised capital is 1.776 billion yuan. It has the characteristics of longer maturity and larger raised capital.

Green stocks and green funds are currently relatively small in our country's market, mainly providing diversified green investment opportunities for investors seeking long-term returns and sustainable benefits. Green insurance usually provides risk protection for low-carbon transformation activities such as clean energy projects on the debt side, reducing the impact of policy, market, technology and reputation risks. In addition, environmental equity tools represented by carbon finance can help companies and investors realize the functions of environmental asset price discovery and cost transmission, and enrich risk management tools and investment options.

In terms of strengthening product innovation in green finance, in addition to continuing to optimize policy guidance, we must more fully apply financial technology and information platforms in the future, and use technologies such as big data analysis and artificial intelligence to assess environmental risks, predict green development trends, and optimize investment. Portfolio to form a higher-quality product supply. At the same time, through the information platform to integrate green development resources and advantages in the region, strengthen collaboration between different financial institutions such as banks and insurance and enterprises, and strengthen linkage innovation among products. For example, through the "bank + insurance" cooperation mechanism to share risks, slow down the risk. Green risk.

China Environment News: What are the typical cases of green finance supporting green and low-carbon development projects?

Shi Yichen:Green finance is an important engine to support the green and low-carbon development of the industry and a strong support to help achieve the goal of carbon peak and carbon neutrality. In view of the large amount of funds and long term required by industries and projects in the green development field, green finance can innovate green finance investment and financing mechanisms, develop corresponding green financing tools, and innovate green loans, green bonds, green funds, green equity financing and Investment and financing models such as green venture capital attract social funds to flow to the green development field and fully meet the reasonable financing needs of green technology innovation.

Taking photovoltaic projects as an example, in the context of "double carbon", the national and local governments at all levels have increased their support for the photovoltaic industry. Zheshang Bank actively cooperated with Zhengtai Group, a leading photovoltaic equipment company, to jointly launch "photovoltaic loan" products to meet the financing and financial service needs of farmers in the photovoltaic market. This project innovates the "bank + core enterprise + small and micro enterprise farmers" industrial chain service model and uses photovoltaic power station equipment suppliers as core enterprises. Providing loans to downstream rural farmers solves the financing pain points for farmers to purchase and build rooftop distributed photovoltaic power stations, and empowers an important window for common prosperity. In accordance with the guidelines of the People's Bank of China Guangzhou Branch, Agricultural Bank of China Qingyuan Branch issued "Renewable Energy Subsidy Confirmation Loans" for renewable energy power generation projects, separating financial subsidy accounts receivable and power charging rights into pledge, which can not only ensure the transparency and clarity of pledge, reduce potential financial risks, but also help renewable energy power generation companies effectively cope with the problem of large financial subsidy gaps and alleviate the resulting operating pressure on loan repayment and principal payments; The application of green insurance in the photovoltaic industry has also gradually improved, forming a combination with other green finance methods to promote value management in the photovoltaic industry and improve the financing environment. At present, there are already companies including PICC, China Pacific Insurance, China Dadi Insurance, and Yongcheng Property Insurance. Companies such as insurance provide corresponding insurance products for most links of the photovoltaic industry chain based on industrial risks, including property insurance, liability insurance and quality assurance insurance.

Taking my country's promotion of circular agriculture and support for the green development of agricultural projects as an example, my country's green investment in circular agriculture mainly comes from special government financial support and support provided by state-owned banks through financial products such as green credit and green insurance. For example, Bank of Gansu Gannan Branch has adopted the "Company + Base + Farmers + Financial Poverty Alleviation + Financial Control Guarantee + Policy Insurance" credit model mainly supports Tibetan traditional Chinese medicine planting and processing enterprises. It has helped the local ecological recycling industry create a number of certified Tibetan and Chinese medicine planting products; Agricultural Development Bank Gannan Branch has implemented the innovative model of "leading enterprises + cooperatives + supporting households", and at the same time lent loans to upstream and downstream enterprises and farmers in the industrial chain, realizing the integration of breeding, processing, sales, and waste utilization has effectively promoted the resource utilization of animal husbandry and breeding waste; Anhui Rural Commercial Bank's "Jinnonglian e-loan" not only has the characteristics of green credit to help sustainable agricultural development, but also conforms to the development trend of "Internet + big data", accelerates the vivid practice of science and technology finance construction, and completes loans at a faster speed. All procedures such as application, approval and issuance; The Changchun Central Branch of the People's Bank of China launched the "Black Soil Fertility Index + Insurance + Credit" product in June 2023, which combines the "Black Gold Loan" product of the Lishu County Rural Credit Cooperative Association and the cultivated land fertility index insurance product of Ping An Property Insurance, which positively encourages land protection., realizes the link between credit funds and the quality of black soil protection, effectively makes up for the lack of black soil protection funds, helps improve the basic fertility of black soil and ensures national food security.

China Environment News: In order to further deepen reforms, how should we actively develop green finance andImplement financial policies and standards systems that support green and low-carbon development?

Shi Yichen:First, it is necessary to strengthen the policy support and guiding role of green finance to provide important support for the development of green industrial clusters. By establishing and improving laws, regulations and normative systems that are in line with the development of green ecological industries, building clear technical specifications and binding frameworks for green development, increasing penalties for violations of laws and regulations, and studying green financing policies such as green credit awards and green bond interest discounts. At the same time, financial institutions, as important participants, need to formulate green finance goals and related implementation procedures and mechanisms under the guidance of strategies such as the "Guidelines for Green Finance in the Banking and Insurance Industry", establish professional green finance departments, and fully authorize, set up special posts and implement them. The implementation of green finance is fully reflected in the performance assessment, and investment policies are improved and refined in accordance with the national green and low-carbon development plan.

Second, we need to continue to promote the effective connection between transformation finance and green finance. First of all, it is necessary to improve the top-level design and standard system of transformation finance, establish and improve relevant standards such as the transformation finance standard system, carbon accounting system, environmental information disclosure system, incentive and restraint mechanism, and evaluation system, and gradually introduce policies related to transformation finance and top-level policies of green finance. Form effective connection. Secondly, it is recommended that regulatory agencies improve the environmental risk stress testing system, introduce corresponding risk management methods and response tools, and make full use of digital means to establish a sound carbon emission data collection, carbon accounting, carbon account management and evaluation system and corresponding databases.

Third, continue to improve the ESG standard system, play a regulatory and guiding role, and promote the mainstreaming of ESG in the domestic market. The "Sustainable Disclosure Standards for Enterprises-Basic Standards (Draft for Comments)" studied and released by the Ministry of Finance marks that my country's unified sustainable disclosure standards system is gradually being established. In the future, in the construction of my country's ESG standard system, we should put ESG risk management capacity building in a prominent position, provide more clear and detailed normative guidance for the ESG indicator system and disclosure requirements, and incorporate current key strategies such as "double carbon" and sustainable development. Goals are included in ESG indicators to help financial institutions objectively and clearly identify "green" and "transformation" projects and provide financial support. At the same time, relevant ESG guidelines need to further emphasize that enterprises should ensure the authenticity of data, and policy and regulatory authorities can issue corresponding penalties to adopt different levels of warnings and penalties for data fraud and concealment and misstatement of important sustainable risks, so as to promote and improve When listed companies disclose information, there are problems such as uneven disclosure quality and selective disclosure, thereby effectively reducing the risk of "greenwashing".

Fourth, incorporate environmental and climate risks into prudential supervision and build a climate risk policy system. It is recommended to follow the strategic deployment of carbon peak and carbon neutrality from the regulatory level, continue to give full play to the "three major functions" of financial support for green development, further improve the prudential supervision framework for climate-related risks, and continuously expand macro In the field of prudential and micro-prudential supervision, strengthen the coordination role of the two, and improve the ability of my country's financial institutions to respond to climate risks. At the same time, financial regulatory authorities should strengthen the exploration of environmental risk management tools, attach importance to studying the correlation between the implementation intensity and effectiveness of climate policies, develop relevant theories and methodologies, and regularly conduct evaluations of the implementation effect of climate policies to build a scientific and effective climate Risk identification and assessment framework and model. In addition, it is recommended to incorporate climate information disclosure requirements into the macro-prudential policy framework, further improve my country's climate information disclosure standards and mechanisms based on the environmental information disclosure of existing financial institutions, and at the same time establish unified risk quantitative measurement standards and evaluation parameters, and align with the internationally recognized climate information disclosure framework.

Fifth, it is necessary to speed up the promulgation of specific standards and policy guidelines for technology to support the development of green finance. Actively explore the integrated application research of "technology + green finance", build a financial technology and green finance development system suitable for the stable operation of the financial industry, deepen the reform of the financial industry system, and accelerate the pace of transformation and upgrading; Actively use scientific and technological means such as big data, blockchain, and artificial intelligence to optimize green financial service channels and improve business processes, which can not only help green inclusive finance achieve extensive access to financial services in rural areas and small and micro enterprises, but also strengthen the green financial system. Environmental, social, and governance (ESG) risk management capabilities, realize ESG pre-investment risk identification and classification, investment difference allocation and management, post-investment dynamic monitoring and accountability, to effectively improve the transparency of information.