YES Bank commits $5 bn for climate action in India

YES Bank, India's fifth-largest private sector bank, has announced mobilisation of $5 billion towards its commitment to climate finance in India. The bank made the declaration to coincide with the Conference of Parties (COP) 21 climate summit underway in Paris this week.

"YES Bank had committed to target funding 500 MW clean energy annually, which it had overachieved. Proactive corporate intervention is critical to achieving the climate goals and financial institutions have a larger role in driving climate action," said Rana Kapoor, CEO and YES Bank managing director.

 

"YES Bank is fully committed to play the role of a catalyst and would work towards unlocking innovative financial mechanisms towards achieving India's ambitious target of combating climate change in the near and long term," said Kapoor.

COP21 is demonstrating the potential to strengthen partnerships amongst governments and business, establishing new pathways to achieve business and financial innovations to address climate change, he said.

The bank's $5-billion mobilisation target from 2015 to 2020 will be done through lending, investing and raising capital towards mitigation, adaptation and resilience.

To help achieve India's target of meeting its Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs), the bank also set a number of its own targets for 2020: target funding of 5,000 MW of clean energy, gradually increase percentage of renewable energy in the power portfolio, contribute towards creating a carbon sink by planting 2 million trees, touch 100 million livesthrough its safe and clean drinking water program and offsetcarbon emissions of the bank's operations.

Through these commitments YES Bank pledges to strengthen overall environment sustainability, the bank said in a statement.

The need for climate finance is steadily increasing in India, which is demonstrated by India's target to achieve 175 GW renewable energy by 2022.

YES Bank claims a leadership position in the field with an exposure of 1065 MW of renewable energy projects including solar, wind and biomass as of March 2015.

Recently, it also signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with The London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG) to collaborate on bond and equity issuance, with focus on developing green infrastructure.

The two-week COP21 Climate Summit, attended by over 150 heads of states and governments and more than 40,000 delegates will aim to mobilise binding commitments based on voluntary action plans submitted by more than 180 nations since March. The goal is to limit the rise in global temperatures to less than 2 degree Celsius through a common agreement.