Climate Bonds Blog

> God I love engineers! I’m beside the River Liffey in Dublin to speak at the International Conference on Ocean Energy. The marine engineering being discussed here is amazing – huge underwater tidal turbines, wave-catchers of all sorts, a cool Norwegian underwater “sail”. Bits of test kit are all over the place, like a giant Mechano game. It breathes innovation. All still pre- or near-commercial stage, so not exactly bonds yet, but definitely hope.

> Catch-up: there were a couple of notably bonds over the summer.

It’s sunny in Venice today; I’ve just caught the vaporetto across to the island of San Giorgio Maggiore to a Climate Policy Initiative/World Bank/OECD meeting on “Expanding Green, Low-Emissions Finance”.

Looking across the choppy Grand Canal I’m wondering whether the new flood defenses Venice is building at its lagoon entrance will be enough, given the scary reports on Greenland’s ice cap melt trajectory that have been coming out in past weeks.

Sean P Flannery, former CIO, Americas, of State Street Global Advisors (SSgA), has joined the Climate Bonds Advisory Panel.

At SSgA Sean was responsible for over US$2 trillion in global assets under management, across all listed asset classes and in all global geographies. He is now a director IFOK and Meister Consultants.

Nordic Investment Bank this week issued a new 20 year (yes, long dated are selling) SEK 500 million "Environmental Bond", linked to their environmental lending portfolio. It was sold mainly to Scandinavian investors. Lead Managers were SEB (go Christopher Flensborg!) and BoAML. Interest rate 2.75%. For details (including about their ring-fencing) go to http://www.nib.int/capital_markets/environmental_bonds