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APEC services propose brand-new environment bonds, carbon credit network

AsiaPacific organization executives prompted emerging economies in the area to issue climate bonds indexed to a basket of currencies, which would decrease the risk from foreign exchange change in raising funds for tidy energy shift.

The group of service executives making up ABAC, which is APEC's Company Advisory Council, also proposed on Sunday introducing a pilot programme to develop a voluntary carbon market ( VCM) for the Asia-Pacific region.

What we're attempting to develop is an interoperable, or equally tradeable, voluntary carbon credit network within the Asia-Pacific region that can accelerate the area's shift to a low-carbon society, Hiroshi Nakaso, head of ABAC's financing and investment job force, told a news conference on Sunday.

Under the program, similar countries will conduct cross-border carbon credit transactions on a trial basis to recognize issues and possible options, Nakaso stated.

The Asia-Pacific region lacks cross-border standards or regulative facilities for a voluntary carbon market, a. system that channels personal financing into environment projects.

The propositions, compiled at a conference in Tokyo on Aug. 1-4,. underscore a growing awareness in Asia about the requirement for. private and public sectors to comply in funding the big. cost of energy transition.

ABAC, an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) advisory. council, will provide its recommendations at the APEC leaders'. summit to be kept in Lima in November. Peru is this year's chair. of APEC, a bloc that represents nearly half of world trade.

In the list of proposals, ABAC got in touch with governments in the. area to provide 10-year bonds with interest and principal. payments indexed to a basket of currencies.

Such bonds would provide establishing nations access to hard. currency to buy solar farms and storage facilities, and mitigate. risk from exchange-rate variation for lending institutions, said Tom. Harley, among the task force's project leaders from Australia.

Asia is amongst the world's most vulnerable regions to. climate-related natural disasters. It also consists of lots of. economies reliant on nonrenewable fuel source or susceptible to currency. market swings, increasing obstacles for energy shift.

(source: Reuters)