Essay by Eric Worrall
“… We need a global financial architecture that helps address the existential threat of climate change …”
The climate crisis is this century’s biggest threat. We need a global finance pact that reflects the task ahead
Chris Bowen, Steven Guilbeault and James Shaw
As climate change ministers, we urge multilateral banks to come together to help vulnerable nations, who face cascading challenges
The science is clear. The climate crisis is the biggest single threat we face as a global community. In turn, meeting the goals of the Paris agreement and realising the opportunities of climate action is the task of the 21st century.
No single government can address this alone. Together, we can rise to the challenge.
When leaders gathered in Bretton Woods in 1944 as the second world war was winding to its close, they set themselves a formidable task.
Their job was to design an international financial system that would reduce global recessions and instability, and lead to a steadier international political environment than the one which bedevilled the first half of the 20th century.
The result was imperfect, but nonetheless astounding. The creation of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund was played an important role in supporting a more stable period through the second half of the 20th century.
If a new Bretton Woods system was being thrashed out today, there would no doubt be agreement that the present task is even greater than that of the 20th century – building a global financial architecture that helps the world stay as close as possible to 1.5C of warming.
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The reality is that climate finance from these multilateral institutions continues to be patchy and at times inaccessible to the nations that need it most – particularly those in the Pacific, and small island states around the world.
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Low interest loans or other financial support = a hidden tax on everyone’s pensions and savings.
If addressing the climate crisis requires a complete redesign of the global financial system and massive subsidies from financial institutions, presumably underwritten by US taxpayers, as Bretton Woods was, then claims green energy is cheaper than fossil fuels are trash.
No redesign of the global financial system was required to deliver today’s fossil fuel powered economy. The fossil fuel economy doesn’t need hidden subsidies to function, fossil fuels are heavily taxed. At least 18c of the pump price of every gallon pumped in the USA is taken as tax revenue, more in other parts of the Western world.
The reality is even if there is not enough money in the world to create a maintain the green energy systems which would be required to replace today’s use of fossil fuels.
Even if they bleed America’s pension funds and financial institutions dry with their green “Bretton Woods” scheme, they will still end up with nothing to show for all that money.
In my opinion, the demand for a restructuring of the global financial system is the mission statement of people who on some level are aware they have already failed.