China Green Finance Committee Holds Annual Conference
The conference was China’s most high-profile event in the field of green finance since the COVID-19 outbreak.
The Green Finance Committee of the China Society for Finance and Banking (China Green Finance Committee) held its 2020 annual conference on September 19 along with a sideline event, the China Green Finance Forum. The fifth annual conference was China’s largest and the most high-profile event in the field of green finance since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic this year. More than 100 experts and business leaders in the field of green finance attended the conference in Beijing, while more than 300,000 people joined virtually.
Gracie Sun, Managing Director of the Green Finance Center and Senior Advisor of the Paulson Institute, attended the conference and presented the findings of a 2019 joint research report with the Research Center for Green Finance Development at Tsinghua University entitled "Fintech Facilitates the Sustainable Development of Green Finance in China: Case Studies and Outlook." She said that not only does China have the world's fastest-growing and largest green finance market but also a rapidly developing fintech industry. To enhance the market potential of green finance in China, obstacles such as inconsistent standards, information asymmetry, high cost of green identification, high regulatory costs, and difficulty in unlocking green finance for small and micro enterprises and consumer sectors must be overcome. Fintech provides new solutions to overcome these obstacles and is a potent propellant for promoting the sustainable development of green finance in China.
Sun said that not only does China have the world's fastest-growing and largest green finance market but also a rapidly developing fintech industry.
The report features four representative case studies demonstrating the successful use of fintech to promote green finance development from the perspectives of different users including regulators, local governments, commercial banks, and insurance companies. The cases highlighted in the report can be scaled across China when conditions are ripe, help the international community gain a deeper understanding of China's innovative green finance practices, and may provide insights for emerging market countries to use fintech to finance their green and sustainability goals. The Paulson Institute’s Green Finance Center will continue this collaboration on a series of research reports in 2020.
At the conference, Chen Yulu, Vice Governor of the People's Bank of China, and Frank Elderson, Chairman of the Network of Central Banks and Supervisors for Greening the Financial System (NGFS), delivered keynote speeches. Chen said that China has established a basic green financial system and actively participated in international cooperation on green finance, and China’s green finance pilot zones have generated some replicable and scalable experiences. Elderson introduced two important documents on environmental risk analysis recently released by the NGFS, hoping to encourage and guide global financial institutions to take part in climate risk-related research and applications.
To enhance the market potential of green finance in China, obstacles such as inconsistent standards, information asymmetry, high cost of green identification, high regulatory costs, and difficulty in unlocking green finance for small and micro enterprises and consumer sectors must be overcome.
Dr. Ma Jun, Chairman of the China Green Finance Committee, moderated the conference and thought leaders had thorough discussions. They discussed top of the agenda topics like local green finance digital platform innovation, green investment and environmental information disclosure for the Belt and Road Initiative, ESG market development and capacity building, green financial product innovation, environmental and climate risk analysis, and how green finance can encourage support for green buildings.
Looking ahead to next year, the China Green Finance Committee is committed to a number of initiatives including research for green finance development as related to China’s 14th Five-Year Plan and promotion of green financial product innovation. It will also undertake development of an environmental risk management system for overseas investment, execution of the Green Investment Principles for the Belt and Road Initiative (GIP) as well as involvement in multilateral and bilateral international cooperation. The Paulson Institute will continue to support development of China’s green finance market, and promote global green recovery and sustainable development for the future.
