Tuesday, December 8, 2020

Central Banking’s Green Mission — Mariana Mazzucato, Josh Ryan-Collins, Asker Voldsgaard

Since the 2008 global financial crisis, central banks have shown time and again that they have the power to maintain the economic status quo. Now, they must use that power to support a timely green transition.
Is the elite finally figuring out that it is time save capitalism from itself? 

Forget falling profit rate, the real exposure is the planet and the people that inhabit it, including the elite.

Project Syndicate
Central Banking’s Green Mission
Mariana Mazzucato, Professor of the Economics of Innovation and Public Value at University College London, Founding Director of the UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose, and Chair of the World Health Organization's Council on the Economics of Health for All; Josh Ryan-Collins, Head of Finance and Macroeconomics and Senior Research Fellow at the UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose, and Asker Voldsgaard is a PhD student at the UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose

2 comments:

Ralph Musgrave said...

I left a comment as follows.

The above article is nonsense.

“Financial actors struggle to calculate their exposure to climate risks accurately…” Really? So firms which insure houses in Florida can’t work out the increased risk from hurricanes and rising sea levels? They must remarkably dumb if they can’t consult meteorologists about hurricanes and climatologists on the subject of sea level rises.

Second, the authors haven’t cottoned onto the fact that large CO2 emitters and other large corporations do not bother with banks all that much: they just by-pass them and if they want to borrow, they go straight to anyone with a few million to spare.

Third, CO2 emissions could of course be cut by implementing a range of legislation which lays out rules on a much broader range of CO2 emitters’ activities than just bank related stuff. E.g. it could be declared that all coal based electricity generation shall cease after say 2030. But that involves moving well and truly into POLITICS, which is not are area where central banks are supposed to intrude.

Andrew Anderson said...

Second, the authors haven’t cottoned onto the fact that large CO2 emitters and other large corporations do not bother with banks all that much: Ralph

Except I don't see how anyone can compete with a government-privileged private-credit-for-usury cartel - at least in principle.