<
https://kfgo.com/2021/08/02/exclusive-citi-hsbc-prudential-hatch-plan-for-asian-coal-fired-closures-sources/>
"LONDON/MELBOURNE (Reuters) – Financial firms including British insurer
Prudential, lenders Citi and HSBC and BlackRock Real Assets are devising plans
to speed the closure of Asia’s coal-fired power plants in order to lower the
biggest source of carbon emissions, five people with knowledge of the
initiative said.
The novel proposal, which includes the Asian Development Bank (ADB), offers a
potentially workable model and early talks with Asian governments and
multilateral banks are promising, the sources told Reuters.
The group plans to create public-private partnerships to buy out the plants and
wind them down within 15 years, far sooner than their usual life, giving
workers time to retire or find new jobs and allowing countries to shift to
renewable energy sources.
It aims to have a model ready for the COP26 climate conference which is being
held in Glasgow, Scotland in November.
The initiative comes as commercial and development banks, under pressure from
large investors, pull back from financing new power plants in order to meet
climate targets.
An ADB executive told Reuters that a first purchase under the proposed scheme,
which will comprise a mix of equity, debt and concessional finance, could come
as soon as next year.
“If you can come up with an orderly way to replace those plants sooner and
retire them sooner, but not overnight, that opens up a more predictable,
massively bigger space for renewables,” Donald Kanak, chairman of Prudential’s
Insurance Growth Markets, told Reuters.
Coal-fired power accounts for about a fifth of the world’s greenhouse gas
emissions, making it the biggest polluter.
The proposed mechanism entails raising low cost, blended finance which would be
used for a carbon reduction facility, while a separate facility would fund
renewable incentives."
Via Robert Sanscartier.
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
