BB plans to launch ‘green\\\' bond, says Atiur

FE Desk

The central bank chief has urged advanced economies to be generous in extending financial and technical support to countries facing the challenge of a changing climate.

Governor Dr. Atiur Rahman made the call Thursday while speaking at a public-private dialogue on 'Delivering Scaled-up Finance for Climate Action', held on the sidelines of the World Bank-IMF Spring meetings in Washington, DC.

The event was jointly organised by the European Investment Bank (EIB) and the World Bank Group, which brought together leaders from governments, financial institutions, and the public sector to explore how to scale up finance in order to combat climate change and to deliver on the post-2015 Development Agenda.

Rachel Kyte, Vice President of the World Bank Group and Special Envoy for Climate Change moderated the session.

Among others, World Bank President Jim Young Kim; EIB President Werner Hoyer; Vice President of Energy Union, European Commission Maros Sefcovic; and President of WBG were the speakers.

Dr. Rahman outlined Bangladesh Bank's initiative of rechanneling domestic financing from the traditional high carbon production processes towards the environmentally sustainable green options, besides government or non-government organisations financed initiatives in adaptive and mitigative climate action initiatives.

The green initiatives those spawned in small scale need motivation and replication; requiring both finance and technical support, he said.

He spoke on the major BB initiatives  in such areas as household solar power and cow dung based units for generating gas, organic manures and electricity; also boasting dairy production.

In his speech, Dr. Rahman called for support from advanced economies in documentation and dissemination of successful best practices in Bangladesh and elsewhere for creating a mutual learning vehicle.

He said such initiatives will help the world community in learning and replicating after tweaking to the local conditions.

He outlined the future initiatives as planned by BB in including the green bond in our treasury management.

He also talked about the China experience as they have taken many ground-breaking initiatives in the area of sustainable and energy efficient production.

Dr Rahmna underscored the need for showcasing the best practices from the countries where it was successful as a necessary toolkit for other countries to learn.

The governor called for taking up long-term project for sustainable and environmentally sound projects.

The dialogue searched collective wisdom for a sustainable future. The dialogue searched for the way of linking Overseas aid and climate finance agenda to meet development and climate change goals of unlocking climate finance, scaling up finance in several key sectors including energy efficiency, water efficiency and sustainable finance in the financial sector, challenges identification and taking appropriate action to activate the people for investing in the green focused products.

WBG president, Vice President EIB praised Bangladesh Bank for its initiative for development of a sustainable future for the society.