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Climate change is increasingly contested on financial terms. Different actors are advancing competing climate visions and interests by adopting financial positions. International institutions urge action by identifying financing gaps needed to meet climate targets. The finance sector claims it holds the key to unlocking money needed for climate investment. Activists expose greenwashing while using financial tactics to undermine fossil fuels. Vulnerable countries demand wealthy governments repay historical climate debts.
This book offers an accessible and critical guide to the political economy and economic geography of climate finance. It identifies six competing "positions" of climate finance to make sense of the array of financial instruments, institutions and ideas that are remaking the relationship between capitalism and climate change. Using a wide range of case studies, from green bonds, to divestment, carbon offsetting, climate tech, central banks, and international climate funds, the authors show how climate finance is shaping our collective climate futures.
— Noel Castree, University of Technology Sydney and University of Manchester
From debt and green bonds, to carbon markets and Green New Deals, Gareth Bryant and Sophie Webber masterfully steer the reader through the vast, complex and technical world of climate finance with deep, rich and engaging analysis of specific practices and financial strategies as well as the actors, institutions and politics that govern climate finance. This is by far the best book on the subject. I recommend it wholeheartedly for anyone interested in the fate of the planet.
— Peter Newell, Professor of International Relations, University of Sussex, author of Power Shift and Global Green Politics
A lucid, comprehensive and expansively researched examination of the contested terrain we call ‘climate finance’. Bryant and Webber offer much-needed clarity on the many forms climate finance can take, all while centring a vital truth: that contrary to claims toward the objectivity and neutral wisdom of markets, in the end climate finance is all about politics, and all about power. Essential reading.
— Adrienne Buller, author of The Value of a Whale: On the Illusions of Green Capitalism
Whether you teach or research climate governance, or are a policymaker or entrepreneur, this book provides a readable, critical and comprehensive overview of the theory, dynamics and practice of climate finance.
— Diana Liverman, Regents' Professor, University of Arizona
A vital and comprehensive critique of climate finance. The book brings much-needed clarity to an industry and an agenda that, even while it remains ill-defined, is becoming the dominant lens through which climate action is viewed.
— Kate Mackenzie, Fellow, Centre for Policy Development, Australia
An insightful, deep examination of climate finance politics.
— Daniela Gabor, Professor of Economics and Macro-Finance, University of the West of England
Gareth Bryant is ARC DECRA Research Fellow and Senior Lecturer in the Discipline of Political Economy at the University of Sydney.
Sophie Webber is ARC DECRA Research Fellow and Senior Lecturer in Geography in the School of Geosciences at the University of Sydney.
Introduction: finance feels the heat
1. Climate capital
"Sustainable" investment
Green bonds
Resilient infrastructure
Renewable energy asset finance
2. Climate risk
Climate risk disclosure
Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) integration
Divestment
3. Precision markets
Social costs of carbon
Carbon markets
Insurance
4. Speculative markets
Green billionaires
Climate engineering
Offgrid solar
5. Big green states
Green monetary policy
Green fiscal policy
6. Climate justice finance
International public climate finance
Climate debt and reparations
Green new deal and degrowth
7. Conclusion: taking a position on climate finance