China is one of the largest green finance markets in the world by its own standards. In 2019, before the numbers were skewed by COVID-19, companies and financial institutions took in the equivalent of $46.6 billion in green bonds. Then, in the first quarter of 2021, it was a record $13.2 billion that Chinese banks, developers, power generators, and rail operators, for example, collected from financial markets with green bonds. They thus overtook the competition from the USA. The figures are even higher for green loans issued by Chinese banks. The total amount of green money outstanding from Chinese banks in the summer of 2020 was the equivalent of more than €1.4 trillion. However, as great as these numbers sound, a closer look reveals some shortcomings.
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