PHL eyes expanding ASEAN Green Bonds framework

The Duterte administration is eyeing to expand coverage of the ASEAN Green Bonds framework to include other sectors critical to improving climate change resilience, Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III said Thursday.

“Specifically, government is looking at expanding the coverage of the ASEAN Framework for Green Bonds to cover such sectors as transportation, infrastructure, and commercial banking," Dominguez said in his remarks during the Green Finance Forum in Manila.

ASEAN Green Bonds refer to bonds and sukuk or Islamic bonds that comply with the ASEAN Green Bond Standards (GBS), developed in consultation with the International Capital Market Associations, capital regulators, and industry players in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations region.

Proceeds from ASEAN Green Bonds will be exclusively applied to finance or refinance, in part or in full, new and or existing eligible green projects.

On August 16, 2018, the Securities and Exchange Commission adopted the ASEAN Green Bonds Standards.

The guidelines provide a reference point for determining the eligibility of green projects covering renewable energy, energy efficiency, pollution prevention and control, environmentally sustainable management of living natural resources and land use, clean transportation and adaptation of green buildings, according to the Department of Finance.

“We hope to mainstream access to green financing through the banks and microfinance institutions. We are, to be sure, exploring possible funding of various public-private partnerships or PPPs through green financing,” Dominguez said.

Strategies to meet the “encompassing challenge” of climate change require huge investments.

“We need to refine our concepts and instruments for green financing to help make investments in adaptation and resilience an attractive one,” Dominguez said.

“The Philippines is among the most vulnerable to the effects of climate change. We have seen how increasingly severe weather conditions inflict a growing cost on our economy, increase the vulnerability of our communities and threaten our food security,” he said. —VDS, GMA News