The Business Times

Nature bonds may be next big thing for EMs

Published Fri, Feb 26, 2021 · 05:50 AM
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EMERGING-MARKET nations are looking at issuing the first nature-linked bonds as part of talks involving the World Bank and major sovereign creditors to make their debt more sustainable.

The proposals aim to link new debt to targets for biodiversity and carbon emissions, according to Simon Zadek, chair of the Finance for Biodiversity Initiative, which published the plans on Thursday. Pakistan could be the first out of the blocks to issue such nature bonds.

The talks, involving the US, China, the UK and Germany, come as mitigating climate change and spurring a greener recovery from the pandemic climb up the agenda for governments. The idea includes plans for an advisory hub to match borrowers with creditors, at a time of surging investor demand for environmental assets.

"This year provides a historic opportunity to harvest a double dividend by aligning sovereign debt relief with nature and climate outcomes," said Mr Zadek, who previously led a green finance task force for the United Nations. "The only reason we need this platform is because investment banks don't know much about this subject."

The group's proposals would tie the cost of debt repayments to quantified biodiversity and emissions-reduction targets, meaning borrowers would have to pay less interest if they hit those. Countries might also be able to pay back debt using carbon credits.

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Pakistan is set to use this system to issue a so-called nature-performance bond of up US$1 billion this year, according to Malik Amin Aslam, a climate-change adviser to Prime Minister Imran Khan. His government has been a heavy user of coal for power generation, yet aims to use greener energy and plant almost 10 billion trees by 2023.

"We could actually tie our sovereign debt retirement to our nature-based performance," Mr Aslam said in an interview. "It's a win-win for us, because it's helping us do what we wanted to do but at the same time creating a novel instrument to finance that whole process."

There's already been a rush by governments around the world to issue record levels of green bonds, which mainly focus on funding clean energy projects. Poland issued the first sovereign green notes in 2016, saying it would use some of the proceeds for its natural parks.

The new proposals aim to integrate nature and climate into sovereign debt more systemically, including credit-rating agencies and investment banks that advise governments on their debt.

The Finance for Biodiversity Initiative has also talked to lenders and asset managers to explore the best designs for these nature-performance bonds. BLOOMBERG

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