The international financial system is awakening to realize its role in enabling a global transition to a sustainable society, using low-carbon technologies and a flexible approach to climate change within the framework defined by the Paris agreement and the UN sustainable development goals.
The international stock of financial assets is about $ 300 trillion. For example, only $ 350 billion of them has been allocated to green energy infrastructure. Achieving of the global climate and sustainable development goals may require the mobilization of $ 90 trillion in green funding by 2030.
This requires large-scale actions to bring the global financial system in accordance with global goals and to mobilize capital to achieve these goals. This means that more systematic approach to green finances is needed at all levels of society: at the level of intergovernmental organizations, governments, international organizations, and the public and private sectors.
The green financial system is a complex multi-level organism that encompasses various elements (central banks, financial regulators, development banks, stock exchanges, rating agencies, international organizations, etc.). Each element has the appropriate competence, tasks, goals, and tools used for development.
By the way, all the elements of the system are dominated by national and international development programs and maps (roadmaps), which define and consolidate agreed and mutually related main directions and mechanisms for implementing of green economy projects.
Green financing includes all forms of investments, both debt and equity, that protect the environment, conserve natural resources, and help to prevent or adapt to climate change. Green financing is used to implement green infrastructure plans that help to improve energy security and other productivity programs, such as improving people’s health.
The need to develop green financing in the Republic of Belarus is determined by the following reasons:
- managing of labor and business migration;
- reducing of damage from environmental disasters and natural disasters;
- stimulating of the renewal of fixed assets;
- introduction of innovations;
- international obligations;
- reputation benefits, a socially significant function;
- tools with a large duration.
The special interest is currently shown worldwide by theorists and practitioners (including global reformer structures, national authorities, etc.) to green finances and the topic of the WFS building on the principles of responsible investment. But the questions about the correlation of benefits and threats from the global spread of green financing, as well as the effectiveness of its application to solve relevant global problems, consideration of the features and assessment of the pace and prospects of the WFS greening remain open.

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