Chiang Zings Trump during Green Bond Report Unveiling

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LOS ANGELES — California State Treasurer John Chiang took aim at Trump administration climate change deniers as he revealed the results today of a five-city listening tour aimed at crafting the best way for the state to issue green bonds.

Chiang said green bond issuance could help evoke changes needed to counter the effects of global warming.

"President Trump may believe global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive," Chiang said. "We Californians stand with the scientific community and the 195 nations that have declared climate change is an urgent and potentially irreversible threat to human societies and the planet."

The treasurer reaffirmed California's support for the goals of the Paris Climate Agreement involving the 195 nations, who agreed to a plan to deal with global warming.

He also noted that the Trump Administration posted on the White House website a proposal to eliminate the country's Climate Action Plan in favor of an Energy First plan that encourages the use of coal and would open up federal lands to harvest what the Administration's website said is an "estimated $50 trillion in untapped shale, oil, and natural gas reserves."

Chiang said he plans to hold a green bond symposium in the fall with global experts in finance, public policy and climate change to break down the barriers to increasing issuance outlined in the report.

"I am determined to boost green bond issuance and acceptance both here in California and across the country," Chiang said. "The challenge is to find a way to make the bonds equally attractive to investors and environmentalists."

One issue Chiang said he is working on is transparency and disclosure issues as there isn't a standard system for gauging what is a green bond. The report also noted that the tax exemption on U.S. municipal bonds has resulted in them being more attractive to wealthy people.

The green bond market has grown to $118 billion internationally since the World Bank issued the first fixed-rate bond carrying a green label in 2008, but it still accounts for less than 1% of all bond sales worldwide, according to the report. The U.S. share of outstanding green bonds is even smaller when measured as a percentage of the $3.8 trillion of municipal bonds outstanding in mid-2016, the report states.

Nationally, green bond issuance had grown to $9.6 billion by mid-2016, the report states, which is nearly double the $4.7 billion in issue in all of 2015.

Chiang's listening tour involved meetings with three dozen top investment firms, which he said, provided candid analysis on the numerous barriers and opportunities to shifting more of the trillions of dollars they control to environmentally-friendly projects.

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