Keep Moving Forward: The world is again closely looking to COP 22, which will end on Friday, for our path forward on tackling climate change. This was the first Conference with the Paris Agreement in force though it may have been somewhat overshadowed by the uncertainty following the US presidential election. With the USD3 billion dollar pledge to the Green Climate Fund up in the clouds there are clearly challenges regarding funding.
However, in Asia, there are positives pointing the way forward. The Indonesian government has found an innovative financing facility for conservation and sustainable development. We sat down with Lisa Genasci, CEO of ADM Capital Foundation, to find out more. Another financing positive is the recently approved new standard for climate-resilient water bonds. Hear about it from members of the consortium that created it, John Matthews of AGWA and Anna Creed & Lily Dai of the Climate Bonds Initiative.
China is also full steam ahead (see the various policies in the Tapping In column) on lucrative solutions or in another name, “green finance”. This is trickling down into water. All new waste & wastewater projects must follow the Public-Private-Partnership model. We take a look to see if this differs from previous funding. Also, new Chinese EPA standards tackling highly polluting landfill leachate (“black water”) are putting traditional solutions to the test. OriginClear's Jean-Louis Kindler, Nicholas Eckelberry & Stephen Jan introduce a viable alternative treatment.
To move forward we also need to go backwards to some degree, well more precisely circular. This is true if we are to tackle the mounting plastic pollution that is infiltrating our oceans. Fashion can be a solution by creating high quality clothes from recycled plastic waste. Waste2Wear's Sondra Kim expands.
So although the global path regarding climate change may be cloudy, there are bright patches ahead in Asia. Knowing where we are is a good start and so we reflect on whether we are now seeing clearly on corporate disclosure.
Regardless of the situation it’s important that we look in all places for innovations and keep moving forward, otherwise lucrative solutions will be missed. On a positive note, in September we said it's over to financial research analysts to build scenarios to value water risk and we are glad to see UBS publish two reports regarding this. It could indeed be sunny times ahead.
 |
Financing Innovation From Indonesia
Green finance is high on agendas. The Tropical Landscape Finance Facility is a new model for just such. How does this work? CWR sat down with Genasci of ADM Capital Foundation to find out |
|
Read this article → |
|
|
 |
Financing Water Resilience: Climate Bonds for China
Climate bonds is a rapidly growing market but there are verification concerns plus gaps for water-related investments. AGWA's Matthews & CBI's Creed & Dai on the new water bond standard |
|
Read this article → |
|
|
 |
Water PPPs To Lead In China
All new water & wastewater projects in China need to follow the Public-Private-Partnership model. Will this mean big change? How have other water-related projects been funded previously? CWR's Xu takes a look |
|
Read this article → |
|
|
 |
Treating Landfill Black Water
Landfill leachate, a highly polluting effluent, is now under new China EPA standards. Standard treatments have limitations but EWS:AOx™ by OriginClear is an alternative as its Kindler, Eckelberry & Jan show |
|
Read this article → |
|
|
 |
Fashion To Solve China's Plastic Pollution
With most PET made for fibres and not bottles, fashion is a big contributor to the plastic problem. However, it can also be part of the solution as Kim from Waste2Wear tells us |
|
Read this article → |
|
|
 |
Corporate Disclosure: Can We See Clearly Now?
Global climate targets are connected to the operations of companies and with COP 22 underway, CWR's McGregor reflects on corporate disclosure, the obstacles in our way & if there will be a sunny day |
|
Read this article → |
|
|
|
|
|
|