Earlier this month two news items rocked me, and I'm still rocking.
The first was the US Government's CO2 Analysis Centre reporting that global emissions had grown 5.9% in the past year. That's the highest ever recorded; it was chilling news. A friend called to say he was going ahead with buying land in Canada for his kids; not an option for most people.
We welcome three new members of Climate Bonds Advisory Panel:
Abyd Karmali, a Managing Director and Global Head of Carbon Markets at Bank of America Merrill Lynch. He serves on Bank of America’s Environmental Council and has worked for two decades on climate change and the carbon markets. He is also President of the Carbon Markets & Investors Association and Chairman of Just Energy, a new Oxfam initiative focused on access to energy.
The Climate Bonds Standard and Certification Scheme will be formally launched in the London at 4pm on 24 November, 2011. The Scheme will provide assurance for investors about the low carbon integrity of bonds for climate change mitigation and adaptation.
Speakers at the launch will be:
Greg Barker MP, Minister of State, UK Department of Energy & Climate ChangeBill Lockyer, California State Treasurer (by video)Christian Kjaer, CEO European Wind Energy AssociationJames Cameron, Climate Change CapitalSteve Lambert, GM Capital Markets, National Australia BankNick Robins, HSBC Centre for Climate Change
> China Green Munis: As a market test, the Chinese Govt has announced it will allow 2 cities and 2 provinces to issue local govt bonds for environmental projects. See http://goo.gl/OKaPh and http://goo.gl/uIG0H. That's right, green and climate bonds, as foreshadowed in a number of mayoral speeches over the past year. It's still unclear whether overseas investors wanting to have an exposure to Chinese debt will be allowed to buy.
Guest commentator Jonathan Johns of ClimateChangeMatters writes ....
1. The UK's Green Deal legislation went through Parliament this week - Hurrah! It allows residential retrofit loans to be repaid via electricity bills, and ties the loan to the house rather than householder. It will significantly reduce the risks of default, eventually allowing investment grade (climate) bonds to be issued against portfolios of these loans. It's a model that will need to be adopted in other countries if we're going to reduce emissions from the housing sector - but, it won't by itself solve the problem of take-up. That's the separate problem of 'adoption' (we're working on it).
The European Investment Bank (the EIB), the EU's bank, is the world's largest clean energy lender. True! Yet their lending is not (yet) enough to achieve the transition to a low-carbon economy the EU needs and has mandated by 2050.
I'm sitting in a meeting in Luxembourg with their management team and 27 member board, in their classically European Union égalité-style board room - concentric circles of seating, all fitted out with push button mikes, translation headphones - and a beautiful green forest just outside floor-to-ceiling glass windows on two sides.
This is a huge bank, nearly three times the size of the World Bank.
Governments can provide more incentives to boost private sector green investments, say Morgan Stanley's Imtiaz Ahmad and Climate Bonds Chair Sean Kidney in "A Climate Change Fix" in Trading Carbon magazine.
Delaware $72.5 EE bond
I’m sitting in the 11th annual “Workshop on Greenhouse Gas Emission Trading” at the International Energy Agency in Paris. 100 very smart people from all over the world, sitting around a huge oval table in a slightly-too-warm, wood-paneled conference room across the road from the Eiffel Tower (yes, I’m looking at it now, so excitingly close!).
I've been privileged to be invited by the co-hosting International Emissions Trading Association. I’ve just finished my 10 minute (ok, it went to 15) pitch about issues involved in mobilizing bond markets to finance climate change solutions. Quite a few questions; encouraging (or maybe just polite).
