climate finance: supporting a sustainable energy transition

This book focuses on the frontier issues in climate finance and aims to develop a general framework to understand the financial pathways towards a successful energy transition. It builds upon the general descriptions of the current status and future challenges towards carbon neutral targets, and then bring forward a combination of theoretical and empirical analysis on the critical issues related to climate finance.

Estimated by the International Energy Agency (IEA), trillions dollars of investment in energy sector are needed to achieve net-zero emission scenario. It provides a huge opportunity for our economies, meanwhile creates considerable challenges to the existing system. Both financing and investment in such an unprecedented scale cannot possibly be satisfied by the current financial architecture, which creates demands for restructuring in the financial sector, developing innovative financial instruments, building mechanisms to attract private investment, and establishing human resources to facilitate climate financing and investment. This area is essentially interdisciplinary, which requires a fundamental reconsideration of standard approaches.

Aiming to satisfy the broad interests from both academia and policymakers, the contents of this book range from general discussions on critical issues to advanced statistical analyses on key topics. Authors hope to bring forward a general picture about climate finance and facilitate the demands for both academic research and policymaking. It should also provide a good guidance for graduate students interested in this subject. The main contents of this book are based on solid research outcomes but with clear policy relevance. The book combines finance theory and practices in both financial markets and energy sectors to reflect the complex nature of financing for energy transition. While the materials can provide useful knowledge to policymakers, the book can also inspire new research ideas in the relevant area.

Dayong Zhang is currently a Professor of Financial Economics at Southwestern University of Finance and Economics (China). His research interests cover energy finance, climate finance, banking and finance, and general economic and financial issues in emerging economies. He is the president of the Society for the Studies of Climate Finance (SSCF) in China, vice president of International Society for Energy Transition Studies (ISETS), the founding editor of Journal of Climate Finance. He published over 100 articles in peer reviewed journals. He is on the Elsevier’s list of China’s Most Cited Scholars in 2020 and 2021; and awarded the 2021 Clarivate Highly Cited Researcher in cross-field, 2022 in Economics and Business. Qiang Ji is deputy director of Institute of System Analysis and Management in Institutes of Science and Development, Chinese Academy of Sciences (ISDCAS). He engaged in the research of energy and climate finance, energy strategic management, big data and energy prediction. He is the co-founder of China Energy Finance Network, Vice President of International Societyfor Energy Transition Studies and Society for the Studies of Climate Finance. He was a founding editor of Journal of Climate Finance. He published more than 150 SCI/SSCI indexed articles in peer-reviewed journals and was selected into Clarivate’s List of Highly Cited Researcher in 2021 and 2022, and also the World’s Top 2% Scientists List published by Stanford University in 2020 and 2021.Dr. Fei Wu is currently an Associate Professor of Finance at the Research Institute of Economics and Management, Southwestern University of Finance and Economics in China. She obtained her Ph.D. from the University of Birmingham. Her research interests include systemic risk and its contagion, financial markets, commodity markets, energy finance, climate finance, and banking. Her works have been published in peer-reviewed journals such as Energy Economics, Energy, Annals of Operations Research, and Sustainability Science. She has received grants from the National Natural Science Foundation of China and the National Social Science Fund of China.