Thierry Philipponnat is Head of Advocacy and Research at the Brussels-based NGO Finance Watch, and author of a new report called “Breaking the Climate-Finance Doom Loop”. In this episode, he explains why banks are trapped in this cycle of continuing to fund risky oil and gas exploration and operations which put the stability of the entire financial system at risk. And how that doom loop can be broken through a simple tweak to the rules on banks capital risk requirements under European law.
Banks are coming under fire for bankrolling the brown economy. Central banks and regulators acknowledge something has to change, but everyone is waiting for an answer that - according to Thierry - will never come. An answer to the question “How can we quantify the risk of climate change?”
He suggests that we stop trying to measure the un-measurable, and treat all brown lending as high risk. To find out how that works, listen to the episode.
Episode # 5. Regulators have the magic wand to green the banking sector. Why won't they wave it?