The demand is not for developed countries to finance BRICS but to finance developing countries in general. This has been the common position of developing countries in international climate negotiations and is not a novel demand (hence not sure why this is news in the first place). I think there are obvious reasons why it may be a good idea for developed countries to provide sufficient support, given that climate change is a global problem, and the capacity of developing countries to help themselves is limited. Regarding China, it remains a fact that it's by far the largest financier and producer of green energy infrastructure (e.g., see Financial Times today https://on.ft.com/3IBsQpe). You may find it dissonant that China still demands of developed countries to chip in, but I think there are at least two valid reasons why it would take such a position: 1) In terms of GDP/capita China is still a developing nation, so it may want to focus its resources more at home than abroad. 2) Given the urgency and scale of the task, I doubt China could go it alone. In any case, I doubt it would be in the best interest of liberal democracies for China to be the only significant source of green investment globally.

What bollocks. China installs about twice as much solar each year as the rest of the world combined. That solar is produced in China and financed by Chinese banks. Supply, demand, financing are domestic. Internationally, too, Chinese companies are the main financiers and providers of green energy investment in the world. China is the only country in the world that has complete value chains in almost all areas of green energy production. The idea that China substantially depends on the meager demand of Western countries (let alone financing or tech) for its green industries belies such an ignorance about the current state of the international economy, itâ(TM)s mind boggling.

Only cash and reserves are government-issued money. Most of the money we use (M2) is not government-issued at all, but created by banks in the form of deposits. Banks do not store government-issued money for you, but convert it into deposits instead. The cash you give them is partially held in vault to convert deposits back into cash, and mostly converted into reserves that are held or traded with other banks to satisfy reserve requirements with the central bank. The innovative thing about the Digital Yuan is precisely that, contrary to the (non-government-issued deposit-) money we usually hold in banks, it is government-issued money that you can hold with a bank. Depending on how the Digital Yuan develops, this has significant implications for how (the Chinese) financial system works, as it may give commercial banks the ability to create liabilities of the central bank, as they issue Digital Yuan. Aside then from the fact that the Digital Yuan will make it a lot easier for the state to surveil financial flows, it could provide a foundation for fundamentally changing for what our money is and how it is predominantly created, reducing the role of deposit money in the financial system and increasing the role of government-issued money.