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ADB gives Japanese individuals chance to fund eco-friendly projects

10 Comments
By Tomoyuki Tachikawa

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Wonder how much of that money the organizers go home with.

-1 ( +1 / -2 )

What a wonderful idea, "invest" in renewable or sustainable projects and products, and do your part to save the world. Except that this is all a farce designed to enrich the top .01%.

Take Tesla, for example. Right now Tesla's stock price and market capitalization are greater than Ford Motor company. Sounds good, and those who have invested in Tesla stock have done well. But on the other hand, the only profit Tesla has ever earned (and a small one at that) came from selling emissions credits to the Big Three automakers. Tesla exists only because the taxpayers of America are forced to subsidize the company. More than half of Elon Musk's fortune has come from people who don't own a Tesla, but who have had part of their tax revenue given to him to offset the loss which every car he makes produces. Those emissions credits which "earned" Tesla it's only operating profit also came from the pockets of the taxpayers.

I suppose the ADB will find more companies like Tesla, which earn no profit, and are headed by greedy corporatists who stand to make billions of dollars, mainly in the form of state subsidies?

Tesla and other such ventures are the most glaring examples of crony capitalism in the world today. But because they are sold as "sustainable" or "renewable" the people are less offended by the wealth of the money being diverted into the hands of the very few.

-2 ( +0 / -2 )

Take Tesla, for example.

Tesla has nothing to do with the ADB green bonds which the article is about and none of the rest of your post is relevant to it either. Is your response to every article about something environmentally friendly to simply spout out random bad stuff you know about other things which are in some way good for the environment?

2 ( +2 / -0 )

I hope that eco-friendly projects lead to more solar energy and less carbon and nuclear use.  Fingers crossed..

3 ( +3 / -0 )

A simple suggestion : Three options for ADB

A) Handover it to America B) merge with AIIB C) file for Bankruptcy.

-1 ( +0 / -1 )

Strange new world. The ones with the most debt make the rules for the ones with the most money to spend.

Just compare Abe and softbank say in India......

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Tesla has nothing to do with the ADB green bonds which the article is about and none of the rest of your post is relevant to it either. 

I disagree. The projects funded by green bonds will be profitable only via state subsidies, which means they will not be profitable at all. A lot of industries have been repainted as "green" in recent years to take advantage of such investments and subsidies. How many trees are cut down in north America to be made into wood pellets, which are then shipped across the Atlantic to Europe to fuel power plants? This practice meets the definition of "renewable", because new trees are planted to replace the ones cut down. But burning wood creates no less CO2 than burning oil or coal, plus you need to add the fact that these wood pellets are transported by oil-burning ships. This "green" practice somehow qualifies as part of the European requirement that 20% of energy come from renewable sources.

The ADB will use the funds it gets to invest in such kinds of "renewable" or "green" projects. And these projects will count on funds coming from the Paris Climate agreement, in other words, subsidies from the taxpayers of developed countries. The funniest thing is that countries like America will have to sell bonds to places like China to meet the Paris obligation, and China will receive the lion's share of the funding. Funny that we borrow money from China, paying China interest, only to give the money to China. And funnier still, China has at least a decade and a half before it has to begin cutting CO2, while America and Europe will have to move more manufacturing and jobs to places like China to help meet their own CO2 reduction goals. It's a win-win-win deal for China (and India, though India says now that they will not be able to meet their Paris Agreement obligations on time), but it will be a lose-lose-lose for everyone else.

It is a scam of epic proportions in which a few people will make a lot of money.

I guess I had better sign up, better to be one of those making big money than one of the poor fools getting his pockets turned out.

-4 ( +0 / -4 )

Excellent move by ADB. In addition, if I'm not mistaken, non-Japanese individuals and corporations without permanent establishment in Japan are exempt from paying capital gains tax on their bond income. So this should attract foreign investors for these green bonds issued by Japanese companies or municipalities.

Projects in China would likely benefit the most, given that a large portion of all issuances come from there. But I hope this will also invigorate Japanese issuers, especially those in the clean energy sector. The less we rely on nuclear power the better, in my opinion.

There is definitely a potential for growth. Currently the green bond market is worth about 200 billion USD globally, whereas it is estimated that 700 billion USD in investments are needed annually for clean energy.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Development and banks plus Asia means 2 competing schemes of increasing an already toxid overload of ready funds. The most clever physists just downgraded earths livibility from 1000to100years.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

I disagree.

Then why not actually go and look at what the ADB is specifically funding and then complain about that, rather than complaining about Tesla, the Paris Convention (etc) and other things which the ADB is NOT funding?

2 ( +2 / -0 )

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