I've spent all day in a Beijing roundtable with a few colleagues, talking with representatives of the State Council's Development Research Centre and various finance sector regulators. It's all about green finance and green bonds, organised by Simon Zadek at IISD and following the government's announcement that it would develop a corporate green bond market. Not many places in the word you'd get this sort of event - and it's very exciting. More as the week unfolds.
To get in the mood, on the way here I re-read last year's Green Credit Banking Guidelines from the Chinese Banking Regulatory Commission. Whoa!!!
Honestly, I don't usually get excited by banking documents, but this one's a corker. By the end you realise it is revolutionary: it's a regulator calling for banks to screen all loans, new and ongoing, for environmental impact; develop green credit products (e.g. green bonds) that help address green priorities; and make what they do public. Now I realise it's terribly intrusive on a free market and all that, but given the latest IPCC report tells us we are heading for climate calamity, this is exactly the sort of regulatory approach the world needs. Small catch: it's only a voluntary guideline ... for the moment.
