Banking and Climate Change

ongoing

Climate change is one of the key societal challenges of our generation, affecting every country, every firm, and every person on this planet for decades to come. More than half of carbon emissions arise from bank-dependent sectors of the economy; and a large part of renewable energy production is financed by banks. The banking sector plays a crucial role for lending to firms and households, for the issuance of securities, for project financing, and for mergers and acquisitions. Yet, the role of banks in addressing climate change is not yet well understood. The goal of this project is to provide a fundamental understanding of the role of the banking sector in addressing climate change. The project will take a holistic view and analyze several channels through which the banking sector plays a central role in addressing climate change: the role of laws and regulations, the role of governance mechanisms in the banking sector, the role of state-owned banks, as well as the interaction between public markets and banks. I pursue this research agenda in two parts. The first part focuses on the role of the banking industry for firms, while the second part focuses on the role of the banking industry for households. Both parts will analyze key agency and financial constraints that can impede the provision of financing for long-term investments that are at the heart of climate finance. This project will shape our understanding of the role of the banking sector in addressing climate change. It will empirically analyze key channels, advance the methodological toolkit that can serve as the basis for future research in this area, and create unparalleled new data sets tailored to analyzing the role of the banking sector in addressing climate change. The results of this project can help academics, regulators, policymakers, and society to understand and address one of the key challenges of our times.