5-step manifesto sets out how to scale to this climate saving milestone
London: 19/10/2022: 08:00 (GMT+1): The Climate Bonds Initiative has today released its ‘5 steps to $5trillion Manifesto’, calling for green bond issuance to reach an annual USD5trillion by 2025 to fight climate change. The organisation, influential in the rise of the green bond market through its market intelligence, standards setting and broader advocacy, has seen green bond issuance reach $2trillion in lifetime volume since market inception in 2007. The call for the fast acceleration of this market to an annual USD5trillion arrives as Climate Bonds hosts the global event in its annual conference series.
5 Steps to $5Trillion
Climate Bonds asserts that making a substantive contribution to addressing the stark risks of climate change requires at least USD5tn a year of annual issuance from 2025. To deliver this, rapid movement is needed to expand, step-up, and implement on the points listed in this manifesto. These are:
- Label Green
- Define Transformation
- Accelerate Policy
- Grow Pipeline
- Boost Emerging Markets
Read the ‘5 steps to $5trillion Manifesto’ to learn more on what each point entails.
Sean Kidney, CEO of Climate Bonds Initiative said: “The starting gun has been fired in the race to save our planet from climate catastrophe, but we’ve yet to start running. Our current bulk of economic infrastructure is not only toxic to our natural environment but also not fit to face the extreme weather that is increasingly common as climate change is frighteningly realised.”
“The good news is that the capital is there to fund this fight we’ve witnessed huge investor appetite for green debt. What we need now is to act at speed and scale - our manifesto demonstrates how.”
The Story So Far: A Green $2trillion
The green debt market has gradually snowballed from a relatively slow start following its inception, to an impressive annual growth rate of over 50% in the last five years.
At the end of 2015, cumulative green debt reached a total volume of USD104bn. By December 2020, the market surpassed the cumulative USD1tn milestone and less than two years later we are beyond USD2trillion in labelled green issuance. The 2020 record figure of USD297bn was overtaken in 2021 with an overall upswing of more than 60% as the annual green figure topped the half trillion mark for the first time, with a total of USD522.7bn.
Now, at the end of the third quarter of 2022, Climate Bonds has revealed that to date a total of USD2trillion of green bonds has been issued. This latest milestone arrives with the warning that though progress has been made, much more is needed.
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For more information, please contact:
Senior Communications & Digital Manager,
Climate Bonds Initiative
+44 (0) 7593320198
Liam Jones
Communications and Media Officer
T: +44 (0)7463 733 900
Notes for journalists:
About the Climate Bonds Initiative: Climate Bonds Initiative is an international not-for-profit working to mobilise global capital for climate action. Climate Bonds undertakes advocacy and outreach to inform and stimulate the market, provides policy models and government advice, market data and analysis, and administers an international Standard & Certification Scheme for best practice in green bonds issuance. For more information, please visit www.climatebonds.net.