Investors call for stricter green bonds
Investors including Allianz, BlackRock and Zurich want stricter standards for green bonds to ensure the right projects benefit.
The firms are part of the Ceres Investor Network on Climate Risk (INCR), which includes pension funds, insurers and fund managers. The group wants tougher standards for bonds that call themselves 'green bonds', to ensure they are invested in projects with clear environmental benefits, such as wind and solar farms.
INCR has called for tougher criteria about what counts as a ‘green’ project; and more transparent reporting on environmental impacts of projects that receive investment. Around $38bn of 'green bonds'
were issued in 2014, but critics of the regime say issuers often use the label ‘green’ for projects with limited sustainability credentials.
Australia to lose $13bn of projects
Australia’s wind sector is poised to lose investment totalling A$17bn ($13.3bn) because of a government deadlock over subsidy support.
Prime minister Tony Abbott’s conservative Liberal Party is seeking to reduce the country’s targets for renewable energy use by 2020, but opposition party Labor is refusing to budge on the higher target. Developers and investors have shelved over 40 projects since the government said it wanted to cut the renewable energy target.
Investors including Australian firms Infigen and Pacific Hydro have been downsizing in the country, and some are considering exiting the market completely. The only consolation for the sector is that the Liberals are discussing potentially removing Abbott as leader.
Supreme Court backs 370MW Viking…
The UK Supreme Court has given the go ahead to a 370MW wind farm in Scotland after dismissing a legal challenge against it.
The 103-turbine Viking Energy scheme planned for the Shetland Islands has been in dispute since 2013. Protest group Sustainable Shetland challenged the Scottish government’s decision to award the scheme consent, due to its potential impact on birds.
The Supreme Court dismissed the case and has declined to refer it to the European Court of Justice, which means developer Viking Energy can start work on the scheme. Viking Energy is a 50:50 partnership between utility SSE and the community of Shetland.
…as ABP drops £450m hub challenge
Associated British Ports (ABP) has withdrawn a legal challengeagainst a plan for a £450m offshore wind facility in Humberside.
Industrial service firm Able UK won government approval for the 900-acre manufacturing hub in North Killingholme, Lincolnshire, in December 2013. ABP objected to the compulsory purchase of a site it owns within the area that Able UK is planning to develop.
The UK High Court last week rejected ABP’s application to judicially review the planning consent for the scheme, and ABP has since withdrawn its objection. Able UK said the the facility was now due to become fully operational by 2018.
Ecotricity backs Labour on green energy
Ecotricity has given £250,000 to the Labour Party’s general election campaign because of the government’s poor record on renewables.
The UK wind and solar developer’s founder Dale Vince said the Conservative-led coalition had, since 2010, “systematically undermine[d] not just the renewable energy industry in Britain but the whole green economy and… efforts to combat climate change”. He also called government claims that green energy led to rising energy bills "one of the biggest deceits of this government".
Prime minister David Cameron has pledged that the Conservative Party would cut subsidies for the onshore wind sector if it won the general election this May. He also claimed that the UK public is “fed up” with wind farms, despite DECC polls to the contrary.
