Bonds for repopulating lions and wild dogs in Mozambique: Johannesburg-based Rand Merchant Bank will issue USD 233 mn worth of five-year bonds between 2024-2025 to increase the population of African wild dogs and reintroduce lions to Mozambique’s Limpopo National Park, Bloomberg reported last week. ZAR 600 mn (USD 33 mn) worth of bonds will be sold around November in partnership with South Africa’s Endangered Wildlife Trust for the wild dog conservation efforts. The lion wildlife bonds, worth USD 200 mn, will be sold around March 2025, with Peace Parks Foundation as a collaborator. Neither bond issuance is a certainty, however, according to director of natural capital Martin Potgieter.

Taking a page out of the World Bank’s book: The World Bank issued the world’s first wildlife bond in 2022, selling USD 150 mn worth for black rhino conservation in South Africa. The returns on the five-year bonds depend on the rate of population growth. “Kudos must go to the World Bank. Their mandate is to do interesting things in parts of the world and have the commercial banks copy them,” Potgieter said.

China’s clean energy investments have increased 6.64% y-o-y to CNY 117.3 bn (USD 16.5 bn) in Q1 2024, Wam reports. The country currently has 512.05 GW worth of clean energy projects underway representing 30.97% y-o-y growth. Almost 90% of the energy sector has also issued ESG reports. However, the rapid growth raises concerns over bottlenecks which have already been seen in the solar industry. PV equipment recently dropped to some of their lowest prices as “grid bottlenecks pile up, market reforms increase uncertainty for [solar power generators], and the best rooftop space runs short.”

ALSO- China is planning a major cobalt stock up: China’s National Food and Strategic Reserves Administration is planning to buy up to 15k tons of refined cobalt for state reserves as prices for the mineral hit record lows, three people familiar with the matter told Reuters last week. The cobalt purchases — China’s largest to date — could begin next month with a tender valued between CNY 200k and 220k (USD 12.5-13.8), Bloomberg reported. No official agreement has been reached with local producers, one of the sources told Reuters, but industry players expect the acquisition to narrow the surplus in the market to around 20k tons. One source did not expect much of a difference to be made to the oversupplied market as long as DR Congo still exports large amounts of cobalt. Congolese cobalt production accounted for 77% of the global supply last year.

OTHER STORIES WORTH KNOWING ABOUT THIS MORNING-

  • Germany to call for harsher EU climate regulations: Germany’s economy ministry will advocate for stricter EU climate regulations to reduce emissions in fossil fuel heavy industries, with a focus on construction and sustainable products. (Bloomberg)
  • South Africa to oppose CBAM: South Africa is threatening to file a formal complaint against the EU's carbon border adjustment mechanism (CBAM) at the World Trade Organization. While the levy — which will require firms importing steel, cement, aluminum and other hard-to-abate industries into the EU to charge pollution fees on those products by 2026 — is designed to reduce emissions, developing nations argue it unfairly penalizes them. (Reuters)
  • Microsoft to purchase 1.6 mn carbon credits: Microsoft — one of the biggest corporate carbon credit buyers — has agreed to purchase 1.6 mn carbon removal credits from a 10k hectare project in Panama that it partially finances. The project aims to remove 3.2 mn tons of carbon from the atmosphere by planting 6 mn trees. (Reuters)
  • Spain joins International Solar Alliance: Spain has become the 99th member of the International Solar Alliance (ISA), which was conceptualized by France and India at COP21. The ISA has supported several projects in Africa and the region, including a USD 35 mn financing package supporting solar energy projects and talks with Egypt to boost solar generation. (Statement)
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