The trend for global financial institutions and companies to divest from coal is gathering pace. Though some Chinese institutions have responded verbally to this, policy changes have so far been lacking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On 9 September, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) again stated it was pulling out of the coal sector. The bank has always been seen as somehow Chinese, despite now having 103 member countries, and the announcement has raised hope that China\u2019s global energy investments may be set to decarbonise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The latest pledge came from the AIIB\u2019s president, Jin Liqun, at the annual meeting of the Climate Bonds Initiative: \u201cI am not going to finance any coal-fired power plants\u201d he said. \u201cMore than that, AIIB will not finance any projects that are functionally related to coal \u2013 for instance roads leading to the plant or transmission lines serving coal power.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A multilateral development bank, the founding of the AIIB was initiated by China at the end of 2015, two weeks after the adoption of the Paris Agreement. It has always described itself as committed to implementing that deal. According to a 10-year strategy<\/a> issued in October, the AIIB aims to increase the proportion of its climate finance to 50% of actual financing approvals by 2025. The bank\u2019s own figures put that proportion at 35% during the first three years of its existence, and 39% in 2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When founded, the AIIB said it aimed to be \u201clean, clean and green<\/a>\u201d \u2013 but observers say its performance so far has been disappointing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The September commitment is not the first the bank has made. In June 2017, Jin Liqun said<\/a> \u201cthere are no coal projects in our pipeline\u201d and, ambiguously, that \u201cwe will not consider any proposals if we are concerned about their environmental and reputational impact\u201d. This has often been seen as a first \u201cno-coal\u201d pledge. The bank\u2019s vice-president, Thierry de Longuemar, was clearer, telling<\/a> Agence France-Presse that same month: \u201cThere are things it won\u2019t finance, like coal-fired power plants.\u201d But then last year a senior energy policy specialist with the bank said<\/a>: \u201cWe only support coal in countries where there is no alternative.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Recourse, an organisation that campaigns for international financial institutions to divest from coal, has found that while the AIIB has not invested in coal directly, it has done so through intermediaries. In 2017, it invested US$150 million in the International Financial Corporation\u2019s Emerging Asia Fund. The next year, that fund invested in the expansion of a cement plant owned by Shwe Taung<\/a>, a Burmese cement-maker, which included a new coal-fired kiln, nearly quadrupling the plant\u2019s greenhouse gas emissions, according to IFC\u2019s own estimate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And the AIIB remains a generous investor in other fossil fuels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n