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Title
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Municipal green bonds : climate finance amidst climate injustices
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Author
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Abstract
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| The climate finance mobilization agenda represents one of the key global responses to the ongoing climate crisis. A dominant discourse within this agenda promotes the idea that by attracting private capital, public authorities and private actors can accelerate the green transition and support initiatives labeled as climate action, including both mitigation and adaptation measures. Green bonds, a green-labeled type of debt instrument issued in financial markets, represents one of the fastest-growing strategies within this agenda. This dissertation offers new qualitative and empirical insights about green bonds from a climate justice perspective. It addresses the overarching question of how municipal green bonds, as instruments of climate finance, engage with climate action (both adaptation and mitigation), and interact with local and global climate injustices. To explore this question, the dissertation is structured around three interlocking triads: three case studies, analyzed through the three pillars of climate justice, across three research phases. Therefore, this doctoral thesis investigates the issuance and materialization of municipal green bonds in the cities of Cape Town (South Africa); Mexico City (Mexico); and San Francisco (United States). It applies the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) definition of climate justice as the analytical framework grounded in the pillars of procedural justice, recognition, and distributive justice, examining the green bonds through the phases of green labeling, project implementation, and the narratives that emerge around these bonds. This study achieves three key objectives. First, it identifies the impacts of water infrastructure projects financed by municipal green bonds, with particular emphasis on issues of uneven water distribution and environmental racism. Second, it reveals three previously underrecognized dimensions of climate vulnerability (race, income, and gender) within the context of water infrastructure financed by municipal green bonds. Third, it provides an analytical portrait of the positive narratives of climate action that are associated with municipal green bonds issuance. It argues that these narratives tend to prioritize financial performance and the achievement of quantitative targets while overlooking the climate justice implications and the complexities of the underlying socio-economic contexts. In conclusion, this dissertation contributes to a deeper understanding of the expanding role of municipal green bonds in climate finance, the implications of their use for climate action, and their limitations in addressing and responding to climate injustice at the local level. |
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Language
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English
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Publication
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Antwerp
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University of Antwerp
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2024
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DOI
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10.63028/10067/2100750151162165141
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Volume/pages
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237 p.
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Note
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Ferrando, Tomaso [Supervisor]
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Full text (open access)
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