The people's Bank of China recently released the report on China's regional financial operations (2022) (hereinafter referred to as the report). In terms of the theme of carbon emission reduction support tools helping green and low-carbon development, the report mentioned that as of March 2022, the people's Bank of China had issued 138.56 billion yuan of carbon emission reduction support tool funds to relevant financial institutions, and supported financial institutions to issue 230.92 billion yuan of carbon emission reduction loans that met the requirements from July to December 2021, covering 31 provinces Cities and autonomous regions have supported the project construction of 1969 (sub) enterprises. Guided by the goals of carbon peak and carbon neutralization, China has vigorously promoted green development. Financial institutions also focused on carbon emission reduction support tools, accelerated the implementation of relevant projects in a steady, orderly, accurate and direct manner, and supported the transformation and development of green and low-carbon, and achieved preliminary results. Experts said that with the promotion and use of carbon emission reduction support tools, further improvement of incentives and constraints will effectively enhance the internal motivation of the financial system to support green and low-carbon development; At the same time, it also helps financial institutions to carry out carbon accounting, steadily promote climate risk stress testing, and strengthen the quality of relevant information disclosure. How can commercial banks actively integrate into the "double carbon" strategy, implement carbon emission reduction support tools, and then play a role in key areas of carbon emission reduction? The reporter of economic daily conducted an interview. Support focus areas The notice on matters related to the establishment of carbon emission reduction support tools issued by the people's Bank of China last year made it clear that the carbon emission reduction support tools adopt a direct mechanism of "loan before loan" to support 21 national banking financial institutions to provide preferential interest rate loans to projects with significant carbon emission reduction effects in the three fields of clean energy, energy conservation and environmental protection, and carbon emission reduction technology on the basis of independent decision-making and risk bearing. How can loans in key areas of carbon emission reduction increase, expand and reduce prices? Qian Lihua, chief green finance analyst of Societe Generale research, believes that the carbon emission reduction support tool is essentially a kind of green refinancing, which accurately supports projects in the three key areas of carbon emission reduction: clean energy, energy conservation and environmental protection, and carbon emission reduction technology. The scale of the support tool is not clear, but it only proposes to provide funds at 60% of the principal of carbon emission reduction loans, that is, it sets a leverage ratio of 0.6 without an upper limit, It is expected that the carbon emission reduction support tool will become an important monetary policy tool to support China to achieve the "double carbon" goal. "From the perspective of the effect of carbon emission reduction support tools, compared with the traditional base currency, the structural monetary policy tools avoid the phenomenon of 'loan reluctance' of commercial banks that may occur under the total monetary policy tools, which not only improves the ability of banks to lend, but also improves the willingness of banks to lend in the field of carbon emission reduction with the incentive compatibility mechanism of 'loan before borrowing', highlighting the advantage of accuracy and direct access." Wang Yao, Dean of the International Research Institute of green finance of the Central University of Finance and economics, believes that in terms of loan interest rates, the carbon emission reduction loan interest rates should be roughly the same as the LPR of the same period grade, which plays a role in directionally reducing the loan interest rates of carbon reduction enterprises; For financial institutions, the interest rate of carbon emission reduction support instruments is 1.75%, with a term of one year and can be extended twice, which is the lowest refinancing interest rate at present, and can also reduce the capital cost of green loans of financial institutions. In order to promote green transformation, the people's Bank of China included high-quality green bonds and loans into the scope of eligible collateral for medium-term lending facilities in 2018, and launched two new monetary policy tools last year: carbon emission reduction support tools and special refinancing to support the clean and efficient use of coal, supporting qualified financial institutions to provide low-cost financing for projects with significant carbon emission reduction effects. The latest data shows that up to now, the carbon emission reduction support tools have issued a total of 182.7 billion yuan, supporting banks to issue 304.5 billion yuan of loans in the field of carbon emission reduction, driving the reduction of carbon emissions by more than 60million tons. The relevant business head of the postal savings bank said that the carbon emission reduction loan will be specially used in key areas such as clean energy, energy conservation and environmental protection, and carbon emission reduction technology. According to the relevant provisions of the people's Bank of China, the bank will regularly disclose information related to carbon emission reduction loans, and continue to play a positive role in financial support of green and low-carbon development. In the first quarter of this year, with the help of carbon emission reduction support tools, the postal savings bank issued a total of more than 5.9 billion yuan of carbon emission reduction loans to 101 projects, with a weighted average interest rate of 4.11%, driving an annual carbon emission reduction of 1.13 million tons of carbon dioxide equivalent. The supporting tool for carbon emission reduction is "addition". The relevant person in charge of the people's Bank of China said that to support the investment and construction in key areas such as clean energy with incremental funds, so as to increase the overall energy supply capacity, financial institutions should provide financing support in accordance with the principles of marketization and rule of law, and help the national energy security supply and green and low-carbon transformation. Accelerate product innovation Since the establishment of carbon emission reduction support tools, financial institutions have actively optimized internal mechanisms and processes, innovated products and services, and promoted the implementation of carbon emission reduction support tools. In order to optimize credit services, financial institutions have launched special products and services. Experts said that special products and services are an important link for commercial banks to implement carbon emission reduction support tools and promote economic and social low-carbon transformation. The person in charge of relevant business of Industrial Bank said that in order to drive more enterprises to achieve carbon emission reduction, industrial bank has accelerated the replication and promotion of carbon emission reduction linked loans since this year, implemented a number of carbon emission reduction and "carbon footprint" linked loans throughout the bank, linked the loan interest rate to power generation, power consumption, carbon footprint and other project elements, and promoted the green and low-carbon transformation of enterprises. By the end of June this year, the balance of green loans from the people's Bank of China for clean energy industry had reached 111.4 billion yuan, an increase of 45.84% over the beginning of the year. The balance of wind power PV loans was 57.6 billion yuan, an increase of 96.5% over the beginning of the year. "In the next step, industrial bank will make full use of the policy dividends of carbon emission reduction support tools, strengthen the service of carbon emission reduction credit products, and guide the economic and social development to a green and low-carbon cycle." The person in charge said. In order to expand the development space of green investment and financing, the Agricultural Bank of China continued to strengthen product innovation and built a multi-level and three-dimensional business system covering green credit, green consumption, carbon finance, etc. The report mentioned that the Agricultural Bank of China launched innovative business varieties for carbon emission reduction enterprises, such as pledge loans for future usufruct of contract energy management, renewable energy subsidy confirmation loans, and ecological restoration loans. By the end of 2021, the balance of Agricultural Bank of China's green credit business was 1.98 trillion yuan, an increase of 30.6% over the end of the previous year. The balance of green bond investment was 88.3 billion yuan, an increase of 35.0% over the end of the previous year. During the year, 27 green bonds were underwritten and 44billion yuan of funds were raised, injecting financial vitality into green transformation. In recent years, financial institutions have accelerated the establishment and improvement of major green finance project libraries and innovative series of green financial products, increased support for the development of the whole green and low-carbon field, and promoted the rapid growth of green loans and green bonds. The report shows that at the end of 2021, the balance of green loans nationwide was 15.9 trillion yuan, an increase of 33.0% year-on-year. The growth rate was 12.7 percentage points higher than that of the previous year, and 21.7 percentage points higher than the growth rate of various loans. Carbon neutral bonds, sustainable development linked bonds and other special products serving the field of carbon emission reduction continue to be enriched. By the end of 2021, the balance of national green bonds had reached 1.1 trillion yuan, an increase of 27.9% year-on-year. Wang Yao said that last year, China's green loans increased significantly, and its stock size ranked first in the world, showing the improvement of China's long-term investment philosophy and green investment and research capacity in the financial market, which will also effectively play a policy demonstration effect, guide more funds to flow into low-carbon emission reduction investment, and provide financial guarantee for China to achieve the "double carbon" goal. Strengthen policy coordination Driven by carbon emission reduction support tools, financial institutions have significantly increased their support for key areas of carbon emission reduction, which plays an important role in promoting the steady decline of energy consumption per unit of GDP in various regions. The report shows that in 2021, China's energy consumption per unit of GDP and energy consumption per unit of added value of industries above designated size decreased by 2.7% and 5.6% year-on-year, respectively. The proportion of clean energy consumption in total energy consumption increased by 1.2 percentage points year-on-year, and the proportion of coal consumption decreased by 0.9 percentage points year-on-year. Taking reducing carbon emissions as the main measurement standard and taking the independent decision-making of financial institutions as the premise, the people's Bank of China will provide carbon emission reduction loans to different types of enterprises in the key areas of carbon emission reduction without discrimination, which will effectively improve the fairness of carbon emission reduction loans, especially facilitate the financing of small and medium-sized low-carbon enterprises. Wang Yao said that this is not only conducive to managing the flow of funds and reducing credit risk, but also can avoid blind lending to traditional high emission industries, ensure the overall supply capacity of energy, and better play the role of Finance in supporting green and low-carbon. It is worth noting that at present, carbon emission reduction support tools are also facing difficulties and challenges in helping green development. The report shows that the supporting policies of carbon emission reduction support tools need to be improved. For example, highly professional carbon accounting, environmental information disclosure and other work have increased the costs of human resources, management, system development, purchase of third-party services and other costs of financial institutions. At present, the supporting policies and measures such as financial discounts and incentives for carbon emission reduction loans are insufficient, and the policy coordination support needs to be improved. In order to enrich the supporting incentive measures, the report proposes to promote the financial sector to encourage financial institutions that actively invest in carbon emission reduction loans through interest discounts, tax reductions and other measures, so as to give full play to the leverage of financial funds. The financial management department strengthened the publicity, interpretation and promotion of typical cases of carbon emission reduction support tools, enriched the supporting incentives of green finance, and improved the enthusiasm of financial institutions to support green development. The low quality of environmental information disclosure restricts the development of green finance to a certain extent. The guidelines for environmental information disclosure of financial institutions issued by the people's Bank of China last year put forward clear requirements on the form and frequency of environmental information disclosure of financial institutions, as well as the qualitative and quantitative information that should be disclosed. The relevant person in charge of the people's Bank of China said that the carbon emission reduction support tool requires financial institutions to publicly disclose the amount of carbon emission reduction loans, interest rates, the number of support projects and the amount of carbon emission reduction driven by the loans on a quarterly basis. The people's Bank of China will verify the disclosed information with other departments and independent third-party professional institutions. It is also very important for the public to know and supervise this. Wang Yao suggested that government departments need to strengthen the linkage and coordination of existing mechanisms. Although the relevant provisions of carbon emission reduction support tools have made it clear that financial institutions need to provide carbon emission reduction data of projects, the relevant carbon emission reduction data calculation still lacks clear technical standards. In view of the fact that the Ministry of ecological environment has formed many methodologies for the calculation of carbon emission reduction data, it is suggested that departments should coordinate the calculation methods of carbon emission reduction to ensure the comparability of China's basic data of carbon emission reduction. In addition, in order to improve the efficiency of climate change response, it is suggested to improve the inter ministerial information notification mechanism, and all departments should actively share information related to climate change response, such as projects, emissions, financing, supervision and law enforcement, so as to provide basic support for the government's strategic research and decision-making, strengthen policy coordination, and play the joint role of "several supports". In addition, at present, the fields of carbon emission reduction support tools are mainly three key areas. The distribution object is tentatively determined to be national financial institutions, and a large number of small and medium-sized banks are not the distribution object of this tool. Experts also suggested to further expand the coverage of carbon emission reduction support tools, provide low-cost funds to local financial institutions that meet the relevant requirements, and