A series of innovative institutional arrangements are expected to be launched-to
ensure that financial support for green and low-carbon sees tangible results
Our reporter Guo Ziyuan
In the field of green and low-carbon development, a series of innovative financial institutional arrangements are expected to be launched, including the creation of monetary policy tools for carbon emission reduction, the improvement of green classification standards, and the improvement of carbon emission pricing mechanisms, which have attracted widespread market attention.
The "Opinions on the Complete, Accurate and Comprehensive Implementation of the New Development Concept to Do a Good Job in Carbon Peak and Carbon Neutrality" (hereinafter referred to as the "Opinions") issued by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council recently proposed that policies should be improved to achieve the goals of carbon peak and carbon neutrality. Mechanism, among them, to actively develop green finance.
How to make relevant institutional arrangements effective?
Many people in the industry said that financial support for green and low-carbon development must be based on sustainability and avoid “a gust of wind”. It is possible to leverage more social funds through the creation of policy tools, pay attention to the price mechanism, and play the role of green pricing. It is necessary to maintain a gradual and orderly process and strictly prevent the risk of "exercise-style" carbon reduction.
Persist in sustainability——
Set up monetary policy tools for carbon emission reduction
Finance supports green and low-carbon development, and sustainability is the prerequisite.
Therefore, it is necessary to study how to create policy tools to leverage and encourage more social funds to invest in green and low-carbon industries.
The "Opinions" proposed the establishment of monetary policy tools for carbon emission reduction; the executive meeting of the State Council also proposed the establishment of monetary policy tools to support carbon emission reduction.
“This is a structural monetary policy tool. The central bank is stepping up its establishment work. It has two major characteristics: accuracy and direct access.” said Sun Guofeng, director of the Monetary Policy Department of the People’s Bank of China. The central bank provides low-cost funds to support finance. The institution provides preferential interest rate financing for key projects with significant carbon emission reduction effects.
In order to ensure "precision", the policy tool clearly supports three key areas: clean energy, energy saving and environmental protection, and carbon emission reduction technologies.
In order to ensure "direct access", the policy tool adopts a "loan first and then borrow" mechanism.
First, financial institutions make independent decisions to issue loans to companies in key areas of carbon emission reduction at their own risk; then, financial institutions can apply to the central bank for financial support for carbon emission reduction support tools, and disclose carbon emission reduction information in accordance with the requirements of the central bank. Accept social supervision.
In response to misunderstandings that may arise in the market, such as supporting green and low-carbon is "one size fits all" to reduce the financing of high-energy-consuming industries, Sun Guofeng said that the support tool for carbon emission reduction is "addition" rather than "subtraction", and is to support cleanliness Investment and construction in key areas such as energy, thereby increasing the overall supply capacity of energy.
In the next step, the central bank will steadily and orderly promote the implementation of carbon emission reduction support tools and guide banks and other financial institutions to provide long-term, low-cost funds for green and low-carbon projects.
In addition, the regulatory authorities will continue to improve the green classification standards and expand the scale of green bonds.
Up to now, the stock of green bonds in my country has approached 1 trillion yuan.
"The Central Bank, together with the National Development and Reform Commission and the China Securities Regulatory Commission, has jointly issued the "Green Bond Support Project Catalog", and the standards for green bonds have been unified." The “Common Financial Classification Catalogue” promotes the cross-border flow of green funds, and at the same time, at the level of international organizations, actively promotes the harmonization of the classification standards of various countries.
Pay attention to the price mechanism——
Play the role of green pricing yardstick
"Financial support for green and low-carbon development must play the role of the price mechanism." Xiao Yuanqi, vice chairman of the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission, said that it is necessary to cultivate a long-term stable market and use green pricing as a yardstick for adjusting the allocation of financial resources.
Taking the "National Carbon Emissions Trading Market" that launched online trading on July 16 as an example, data shows that as of October 22, the cumulative transaction volume of carbon emission allowances (CEA) was 19.1106 million tons, and the cumulative transaction amount reached 863 million yuan. , The highest transaction price of the listing agreement transaction is 61.07 yuan/ton, and the lowest transaction price is 41.00 yuan/ton.
However, it should be noted that the current carbon pricing still cannot form an effective incentive for the R&D and investment of energy-saving and emission-reduction technologies.
For this reason, it is urgent to improve the carbon emission pricing mechanism.
"We must give full play to the role of the market, which is conducive to maximizing the incentives and constraints of carbon emission prices. In this regard, financial institutions can actively explore." Yi Gang said.
In this regard, Lv Jiajin, Chairman of Industrial Bank, suggested that as more and more market entities have established their own "carbon balance sheets", financial institutions can use this as an opportunity to give full play to their professional advantages and help various market entities manage "carbon assets." "This will increase the number of trading entities, activate carbon prices, and ultimately create a larger carbon market.
In addition to the carbon market, the green credit market also urgently needs to improve its pricing mechanism.
Xiao Yuanqi said that it can start from two aspects to improve the "greenness" of external and internal pricing.
To increase the "greenness" of external pricing means to increase the "green sensitivity" of financial asset prices.
"We need to refine the pricing factors of financial products and expand the green risk factors." Xiao Yuanqi said that only in this way can we more fully capture the green-related risks of financial products, and thus convert the risks into price costs, so that the market can form a comparable market. Sexual "green premium".
To improve the "greenness" of internal pricing, financial institutions need to improve their internal capital accounting system.
In the next step, the supervisory authority will guide financial institutions to reflect green incentives in internal pricing, promote the convergence of internal resources to green industries, gradually reduce the concentration of funds in high-carbon industries, and promote financial market prices to tilt toward green industries.
Keep it gradual-
Strictly prevent "sports-style" carbon reduction risks
Financial support for green and low-carbon development must handle the overall and partial, current and long-term relationships, and formulate a reasonable timetable and roadmap.
At present, we must particularly handle the relationship between energy security supply and the green and low-carbon transition, and strictly prevent "movement-style" carbon reduction risks.
Recently, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China and Agricultural Bank of China have respectively signed cooperation agreements with the National Energy Administration and Datang Group.
ICBC plans to provide 3 trillion yuan of intentional financing support for the energy sector in the next five years to support the low-carbon transformation of the energy industry.
"Currently, the internal and external situations faced by my country's energy supply are relatively complicated. We hope to work with financial institutions to ensure energy supply this winter and next spring, jointly promote the development of green energy, and promote the achievement of carbon peak and carbon neutral goals." Party Secretary and Director Zhang Jianhua said.
Lu Jiajin believes that financial institutions should increase awareness of the overall situation, respect economic laws, promote green transformation in a steady and orderly manner, eliminate “one size fits all” policies, stop “cliff-type” lending, prevent other risks arising in the carbon reduction process, and prevent micro-actions from triggering macroeconomics risk.
Next, Industrial Bank will make efforts at both the old and new ends of industrial transformation and upgrading, focusing on exploring the huge opportunities in clean energy and renewable energy, green transportation and green travel, energy storage technology, carbon emission reduction technology and other fields.
Achieving a green and low-carbon transition is a gradual process, and a phased plan must be formulated.
For traditional high-carbon industries, financial institutions should develop targeted products to meet the diversified funding needs faced by enterprises in the process of low-carbon transformation.
At the same time, it is necessary to appropriately optimize financial service arrangements on the basis of controllable risks and independent negotiation to ensure the basic stability of the industrial chain and supply chain.
"In the process of promoting the development of the green economy, the financial industry should minimize the fluctuations that may occur during economic transformation and repair the market failures and price distortions in it." Xiao Yuanqi said.
Guo Ziyuan