A Study on the Allocation of Funds within the Global Climate Governance Framework: Based on the Interaction Between Green Bonds and Carbon Markets

Abstract

Amid the accelerated progress of global climate governance, bridging the significant climate finance gap is a core challenge in achieving temperature control goals. As two key market-based climate finance instruments, the synergistic development of green bonds and carbon markets holds significant potential for optimizing the efficiency of global climate finance allocation. This study focuses on the interplay between green bonds and carbon markets and the mechanisms that influence climate finance allocation. First, it systematically examines the current status and characteristics of the global climate governance finance gap and identifies the limitations of traditional funding sources. Second, it deeply analyzes the green bond market's role in providing low-cost, scalable financing for low-carbon projects and the carbon market's central role in guiding emission reduction investment flows through price signals. It focuses on theoretical pathways and empirical evidence for the interplay between the two markets in terms of price transmission, risk management, investor incentives, and information disclosure and sharing. For example, rising carbon prices boost the expected returns of green projects, thereby stimulating green bond issuance, and carbon credits generated by projects financed by green bonds can flow back into the carbon market. The study finds that current interplay faces obstacles such as policy fragmentation, diverging standards, varying market maturity, and insufficient cross-border coordination, significantly hindering the realization of synergistic effects. Based on this, we propose optimization paths, including strengthening top-level policy design to promote rule compatibility, promoting innovation in carbon financial derivatives, establishing a unified information disclosure and certification platform, exploring integrated products such as "carbon bonds," and deepening international coordination to facilitate cross-border capital flows. The research concludes that deepening the institutional linkage between green bonds and the carbon market is a key breakthrough for increasing the scale, efficiency, and precision of global climate finance flows, and has significant practical significance for achieving a just transition and global carbon neutrality.