China’s regulator said Friday it would ban initial public offerings by companies violating the country’s environmental laws.
The China Securities Regulatory Commission, in an attempt to clamp down on China’s snarling pollution, said it would not accept the offerings (IPOs) from companies and financial institutions that violated environmental protection during the past three years.
The regulator will also prohibit handing out additional share sales by public companies that continue to violate environmental rules — the ban is part of an effort by the country to encourage companies to issue bonds to finance “green” and renewable energy.
China’s effort to throttle businesses for not being green enough is in keeping with the country’s recent track record of placing climate change policies at center stage. But despite the tough talk, China still plans on using more coal as an energy supplier for its enormous population.
In fact, China has more than 1,171 of the world’s 2,400 coal-fired power plants under construction or being planned around the world. More alarming, perhaps, is that the rapid growth of coal power overseas means China’s carbon emissions are unlikely to stop rising.
Still, celebrities, politicians, and other climate justice warriors, have begun championing China for its efforts to fight global warming. Oscar-winning actor Leonardo DiCaprio, for instance, heaped praise on the communist country in March while promoting his new movie “The Revenant” in Beijing.
“As we all know, the United States and China are the two biggest contributors, and I think that China has made radical movements forward as far as alternative energy and ways to be sustainable,” he said at a press conference at the time. China has the opportunity “to change the world and I have all the confidence in the world that that is their intention,” DiCaprio added.
Some environmentalists have even taken to training China’s citizens on how to become proper leaders on the climate.
Former Vice President turned hard-core environmentalist Al Gore etched time out of his schedule in June to his group, Climate Change Project, to train a group of community, government and business leaders in the country to become global warming activists euphemistically called “Climate Reality Leaders.”
