SCIO press conference on forging ahead with confidence, upholding fundamental principles, breaking new ground, supporting high-quality development of real economy
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E-mail China.org.cn, March 14, 2023
Financial Times:
Since China put forward the "dual carbon" goals, green finance has ushered in a broad space for development. What role does the PBC play in supporting green development? What are the further considerations? Thank you.
Yi Gang:
As you all know, in 2020, General Secretary Xi Jinping made a major policy decision for peaking carbon dioxide emissions and achieving carbon neutrality and announced China would strive to peak carbon dioxide emissions by 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality by 2060. The key to achieving these goals is to reduce carbon emissions. We know that carbon emissions have a negative externality . That is, companies or units that emit carbon do not pay for the carbon they emit, so their carbon emissions have a negative impact on society. What we can do in finance is to reduce this negative externality and gradually reduce the green premium. How to do this? We need to strengthen information disclosure. This way, the public will know who is emitting carbon and how much is being emitted, helping them to gradually realize that whoever emits carbon will bear the cost of their carbon emissions. This will reduce the green premium and make our green and clean energy cheaper so that households and enterprises are more willing to use green products.
In 2021, the PBC introduced the carbon-reduction supporting tool, whereby it rolled out re-lending programs for financial institutions with an interest rate of 1.75%, allowing them to offer concessional loans in accordance with market principles for sectors involving clean energy, energy conservation and environmental protection, and carbon-reduction technologies. Financial institutions receiving low-interest re-lending loans from the PBC must abide by one condition: they must promise to release their carbon emission-related loan balance, interest rate, and effect. The release of this information should be subject to the oversight of independent third-party institutions and the public while also being conducive to the promotion of the green development philosophy. The goals of peaking carbon emissions and achieving carbon neutrality require the people and society to develop concepts about eco-friendly lifestyles, green manufacturing, energy conservation, and carbon emission reduction. To achieve this goal, we have made plenty of efforts to promote carbon accounting and the release of environmental information.
So far, re-lending loans worth over 300 billion yuan have been issued via the carbon-reduction supporting tool, and supported commercial banks in issuing loans worth more than 500 billion yuan. This has helped reduce carbon emissions by the equivalent of 100 million tons of CO2. Two foreign banks were also included in the scope of the tool last year.
We also strengthened international cooperation on green finance. As co-chair of the G20 Sustainable Finance Working Group, China took the initiative to formulate the G20 Transition Finance Framework . Approved last year at the G20 Summit in Bali, Indonesia, the framework has become a guidebook for all countries' financial sectors to support green and low-carbon development. Meanwhile, China and the European Union also jointly issued two editions of the ''Common Ground Taxonomy.'' According to the latest version of this classification, the convergency between Chinese and EU economic activities for climate change mitigation has reached 80%.
Looking ahead, we will improve the standard systems for green finance and strengthen financial institutions' capacity for releasing environmental information. We will also support the development of green finance tools, enhance international cooperation on green finance, and bolster the green transformation of the national economy in a bid to make our ways of production and life more eco-friendly.
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