Alternatives for Financing of Municipal Investments - Green Bonds
AbstractThe perspective of global climate change emerges as a significant political, economic, financial and social issue. Scientific researches show that the accumulated carbon dioxide (CO2), released by the industry and agriculture, together with the contribution of man-made greenhouse gases leads to a rise in the temperature of the earth's surface. Traditional sources of financing capital expenditure, such as own revenues and bank financing have proved to be extremely insufficient. At the same time, not only traditional municipal needs, such as costs for street, road, bridge, school construction etc., but also the need of investments related to climate change have been on the rise. The purpose of this article is to examine and analyze alternatives for financing climate change-related municipal investments. The subject of the research is green bonds and the so-called Subnational Pooled Financing Mechanisms, which have already gained popularity in Western Europe but are not yet well known in Eastern Europe. The positive aspects and opportunities that the green bond market reveals as well as the barriers to this type of financing are assessed and an analysis of the practice of bond financing in Europe is made.