Jonathan Taylor, EIB Vice President responsible for climate action, environment and energy was representing the EIB at an event on Green Finance in the margins of the Spring Meetings in Washington. The meeting focused on the need to deliver on the commitments made at COP21 and the role of governments and public financing institutions in mobilising private capital for green investment.
The event was co-organised by the Paulson Institute, the Green Finance Committee (GFC), China Society for Finance and Banking under The People’s Bank of China’s (PBOC), the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association (SIFMA), UNEP and Bloomberg Philanthropies. Participants were confident that the market was giving off promising signals, with investors moving towards sustainable financing paths. However, the broad view was that to achieve the Paris targets, these numbers need to increase. Vice president Taylor said ,"Leveraging in private sector investment will be key to getting the money we need to meet the targets".
The Vice President highlighted the volume and proportion of EIB financing devoted to green issues,as well as the bank's development of products to facilitate green investment,on both sides of the balance sheet.
The EIB started the market for Green Bonds in 2007 and has issued almost EUR 13 billion in the format. This makes it the biggest issuer of Green Bonds in the world, and a principle driver of best practices in the market.
This meeting followed discussions among senior representatives from Multilateral Development Bank`s to assess progress on climate action post-COP 21 and reinforce their commitment to work collectively to increase climate investments from public and private sectors as set out in the joint MDB declaration at COP 21.
At the meeting, mainstreaming climate action considerations in all investments took the centre stage. This is an area where the EIB, is a pioneer. Overall the EIB currently expects to finance climate-friendly projects worth USD 100 billion by 2020. The Bank commits at least 25% of total lending to climate-action. In developing countries, at least 35% of lending will be dedicated to climate action by 2020.
Vice President Taylor emphasized the EIB's leading role in collaborating with other MFIs to develop common standards. The EIB has coordinated a group of 11 international financial institutions which released guidelines for the harmonised reporting of the impact of projects associated with Green Bonds, thereby improving transparency and fostering comparability across Green Bond issuers, which is vital for engaging institutional investors and bringing scale to climate finance.
The Green Climate Fund, to which the EIB has recently been accredited, presents a further opportunity for partnership for successful and innovative climate finance.