The emergence of green bonds as an integral component of climate finance in South Africa

Abstract

One of the greatest challenges facing the global community is climate change. 1 Over many years, global leaders have embarked on various platforms in a concerted effort to combat climate change. 2 One of the key platforms has been the annual Conference of the Parties (COP)-a regular meeting in which climate negotiations and high-level political discussions have taken place. 2 In 2015, the 21st COP was the most important because 195 countries agreed to ensure that rising global temperatures do not exceed the safe zone of 1.5 °C, as it is forecasted that temperatures will continue beyond this value between 2030 and 2050 if no action is taken to combat climate change. 3 The parties further agreed that climate investments for countries are critical to make enormous transformational changes to reduce their greenhouse gases by scaling up climate adaptation and mitigation strategies. 3

Determinants of climate finance: Analysis of recipient characteristics in Sub-Sahara Africa

“…Approximately 43 countries in SSA have received some climate finance, yet about half (49%) of the region's approved funding is in the hands of the top ten recipient countries, and more fragile and war-torn countries in the region like Liberia, Chad, Burundi and Somalia, which are more vulnerable to climate change, receive less climate finance (Watson & Schalatek, 2019). Moreover, at regional level, Africa has the lowest number of approved requests in comparison to other regions such as Latin American and Asia-Pacific regions, and in general, the amount of climate funding allocated to African countries has been criticized as being insufficient to meet the mitigation and adaptation goals (Afful-Koomson, 2015;Fonta et al, 2018;Ngwenya & Simatele, 2020). Gilder and Rumble (2020) recently argue that the availability of climate finance tends to be more donor-centric than recipient focused and suggest that the scope of climate funding to African countries can be improved if both donor and recipient countries can have a common understanding of what is expected from each party.…”

The Effect of Green Banking Practices on Banks’ Environmental Performance and Green Financing: An Empirical Study

“…Additionally, financial institutions are given the 'Golden Peacock Climate Management Award', while the 'Global Green Economy Index' and many other evaluation indexes are utilized to rank the global economies. Climate change remains one of the biggest problems facing both developed and developing countries in the world [3]. As most developing countries are in the transition period for economic and social development, they are, on the one hand, very vulnerable to climate change and, on the other hand, dependent on global climate finance to support climate protection and mitigation programs.…”

“…As most developing countries are in the transition period for economic and social development, they are, on the one hand, very vulnerable to climate change and, on the other hand, dependent on global climate finance to support climate protection and mitigation programs. However, many developing nations, such as Bangladesh, are struggling to reap this benefit due to their lack of effective institutions with project design and planning expertise [1,3].…”

“…Additionally, various studies have recently been conducted in the area of GB, globally [2,3,11,[14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21]. However, these studies are mainly focused on GB activities and its development in the context of Bangladesh [15,22,23]; green banking adoption [16,24,25]; GB performance and environmental sustainability [19,21,22,26]; and green finance [1,5,27].…”

Factors Affecting the Sustainability Performance of Financial Institutions in Bangladesh: The Role of Green Finance

“…Climate change and its respective environmental implications have become a major issue affecting developed and developing countries [9]. In a developing and agro-based country such as Bangladesh, it resulted in an economic hardship owing to its high susceptibility to weather changes [10,11].…”