This International Institute for Sustainable Development and the Finance Research Institute of the Development Research Centre, State Council of China, are collaborating on an exploration of policy options to support China in developing a “green financial system,” and to encourage such developments internationally. This paper highlights the findings from the first phase of this partnership.
Fossil fuel subsidies undermine efforts to mitigate climate change and damage the trading system. However, multilateral discussion is hampered by inconsistent definitions and incomplete data. Members do not notify such subsidies as much as they should under the Agreement on Subsidies and Countervailing measures (ASCM), which limits the usefulness of the SCM Committee. The reports of the Trade Policy review mechanism on individual countries and on the trading system draw on a wider range of sources, creating an opportunity for non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to provide the missing data from publicly available sources. This report suggest a new template that could be used for such third-party notifications. The objective is to shine a light on all fossil fuel subsidies that cause market distortions, especially trade distortions. The result should be better, more comparable data for the Secretariat, governments, and researchers, providing the basis for better-informed discussion of the incidence of fossil fuel subsidies and rationale for their use.
China’s economy continues to grow rapidly with corresponding increases in both energy consumption and environmental pollution. Renewable energy is a key part of China’s response to this challenge. Currently, the costs of measures to facilitate the large-scale deployment of renewable energy are primarily met through an electricity surcharge—effectively a tax on electricity consumption. However, concerns have been raised that continuing to rely on the surcharge alone places a disproportionate burden on electricity consumers. In response, the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) and the China National Renewable Energy Centre (CNREC) identified the need for further debate on how best to fund renewable energy and reduce environmental pollution, leading to the establishment of a research project to examine the international experience of similar schemes and their relevance to China.
The publication includes case studies from Australia, Canada, Denmark, Germany, India, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
This discussion paper highlights the key role that is being, and could increasingly be played by South-originating green finance in an evolving financial landscape, given the pressing need to scale green investment, and the potential for national and international policies to accelerate its volume and enhance its impact. This paper, as part of the initiative on South-originating Green Finance, is intended to help: crystallize current knowledge, including a sense of future trends based on current data; provide a framework for further discussion, including definitions and testable hypotheses; offer initial policy reflections and, where possible, recommendations; and set out a policy-focused research agenda.
The world is increasingly faced with the challenges stemming from the need to sustain an expanding global population while simultaneously addressing the environmental pressures that could threaten our ability to accomplish this. Green growth has emerged as a strategy to balance the historically divergent priorities of achieving economic growth and social development without putting at risk the environmental systems and natural capital we rely so heavily upon. This approach emphasizes the environmental and economic gains achieved by reducing inefficiencies in the management of resources and the stimulation of new sources of activity through innovation and green market growth.
IISD and the Partnership for Procurement and Green Growth conducted an investigation to explore the correlation between public procurement and the tipping point at which it serves as a trigger for green industrial innovation, expansion and growth. Building on the existing body of work that supports the case for green public procurement, the report demonstrates that procurement is becoming more than just a purchasing tool, but is increasingly positioned as an economic driver, an incentive for green innovation and green industrialisation, a support for small and medium enterprise (SME) competitiveness and much more.