Zhang Bei, deputy director of the Research Bureau of the People's Bank of China: Financial institutions issued more than 1.5 trillion yuan in carbon emission reduction loans

On July 21, Zhang Bei, deputy director of the Research Bureau of the People's Bank of China, introduced at the National Carbon Market Conference 2024 that so far, carbon emission reduction support tools have guided financial institutions to issue more than 1.5 trillion yuan in carbon emission reduction loans, covering more than 6000 market entities have driven annual carbon emission reductions of nearly 200 million tons.

Zhang Bei introduced that in recent years, the financial system and the ecological and environmental departments have worked together to jointly promote green finance and achieve positive results. As of the end of the first quarter of 2024, the balance of China's green loans was 33.77 trillion yuan, and the balance of green bonds exceeded 1.9 trillion yuan.

Zhang Bei, Deputy Director of the Research Bureau of the People's Bank of China

Zhang Bei said that with the vigorous development of green finance, there are also some areas worthy of attention and research. The first is transformation finance and transformation planning. Requiring financing entities to disclose transformation goals, transformation paths, financial plans, etc. through transformation plans can not only promote enterprises to improve their internal management levels, but also help financial market participants assess risks, ensure that enterprises 'low-carbon transformation is true and effective, and prevent false transformation. However, from a practical perspective, due to insufficient data capabilities, it is still difficult for financing entities to formulate transformation plans.

The second is financial support for climate adaptation. As climate risks continue to escalate, there will be a larger funding gap in the field of climate adaptation in the future. Challenges include the difficulty in specifically evaluating and quantifying the economic benefits of projects adapted to climate changes, the lack of detailed standards for climate adaptation projects, and the difficulty in financial intervention. Climate adaptation projects have relatively high investment risks, relatively low return rates, long cycles, and insufficient attractiveness to social capital.

The third is natural financing. More than 50% of the world's GDP is highly dependent on nature and its services, but the current ecosystem is under great pressure and has been damaged. Compared with the field of climate change, nature-related information disclosure has great room for improvement in the assessment of nature-related opportunities and risks and financial support.