Said the Assistant Director of Sustainable Finance at Standard Chartered Oliver Phillips, that the rise in oil prices will not be an obstacle to the process of energy transition, but rather will accelerate it due to the returns it will achieve that can be directed to green projects.
In an interview with Al Arabiya, on the sidelines of the Middle East Energy Conference and Exhibition, Phillips added that Standard Chartered Bank helped the Public Investment Fund develop its green finance framework.
He stated that this framework is a document that allows the fund to access the green finance market with the aim of supporting green projects under the umbrella of PIF and its portfolio of companies.
Phillips added: “It’s a significant milestone, the first time ever that a sovereign fund has done something like this and it shows how committed the Saudi Investment Fund is to spearheading the energy transition in the kingdom and beyond.”
He stated that the United Nations has set the sustainable development goals, which require funding between 23 and 24 trillion dollars, adding: “Even if this amount is a little exaggerated, it is still a huge amount of capital and funding that must be allocated to the financing that must be directed to these purposes that reflect the extent of the green finance market.
He revealed that the volume of green debt or sustainable bonds amounted to one trillion dollars last year, which is a huge amount of the total volume of the bond market.
He expected that there will be more sustainability, growth and borrowing with the continued growth of the market and achieving high levels every year.
Regarding oil markets, Phillips mentioned that many countries in the region have announced that they are moving away from oil and are diversifying their economies to net zero goals.
He explained that the way in which this can happen is by transforming oil wealth into green wealth if it wants, and it is likely that the current rise in oil prices will accelerate some of these things because it may increase the capital that can be directed to green areas and will have an advantage in these emerging opportunities.