Gaps in funding, data, economic development hurdles for green economy: FSC chief

Private sectors across the globe should make a concerted effort to narrow the gaps in achieving the philanthropic goal of a green economy, said a top financial regulator of South Korea.

“Even if a nation successfully puts an end to COVID-19, the pandemic will not be over until it’s over everywhere,” Financial Services Commission Chairman Eun Sung-soo said in an opening remark of Partnering for Green Growth and the Global Goals 2030‘s special session on Saturday.

“The same goes for climate change. Even if some countries achieve carbon neutrality, the climate crisis will not be solved if other countries keep emitting carbon. In short, global cooperation is crucial to fight the climate crisis.”

Eun heads the financial regulator that is set to require listed firms here to hand out corporate disclosures associated with environmental, social and governance factors in phases starting 2025.

To achieve global green goal, stakeholders should be fully aware of gap in funding, data and the level of economic development, he said.

The funding gap hampers the large-scale investment into green technology and companies, partly due to lack of incentives of private sector players.

The concept of blended finance, a tool to mobilize more private finance in the field of public-involved green development finance, must become more universal to meet a strong financing demand to advance prototype technologies to full-fledged ones. Alongside the blended finance, the world can expect more commercially viable green projects by nurturing an enabling environment for private sector adaptation in developing countries.

“I believe the recent rise of interest in blended finance, which combines private and public finance, is grounded in concerns about such funding gap,” Eun said.

Moreover, data gap leaves the world subject to greenwashing concerns, thereby an efficient allocation of proceeds of green instruments is elusive without a standardized framework in regards to gauging the level of carbon neutrality and disclosing climate-related activities. In the meantime, developing nations have stopped short of achieving a goal of mobilizing $100 billion each by 2020 to support developing countries’ climate action, as stipulated under the Sixteenth session of the Conference of the Parties. Actions must be taken to prevent the gap from growing larger.

Eun said Korean entities are capable of playing the linchpin role in international cooperation to narrow the gap.

“Korea has been sharing with the world its equipment and knowledge in preventing and controlling the pandemic. Likewise, we will continue to collaborate closely with the international community to promote green finance,” he said.

The session featured discussions to narrow the gaps by representatives of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the World Economic Forum, the International Finance Corp., the Global Green Growth Institute, the Green Climate Fund, the European Investment Bank, Standard and Poor’s Global Market Intelligence, the Taskforce on Climate-related Financial Disclosures, the Bank for International Settlements and the Korea Development Bank.

By Son Ji-hyoung (consnow@heraldcorp.com)