The Economisation of Climate Change
How the G20, the OECD and the IMF Address Fossil Fuel Subsidies and Climate Finance

Discusses how G20, IMF and OECD have addressed climate finance and fossil fuel subsidies, including consequences for climate politics.

Jakob Skovgaard (Author)

9781108492836, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 25 March 2021

300 pages
25 x 17.5 x 2 cm, 0.66 kg

'The need to shift the way finance operates is now widely recognized as essential for the societal transformations necessary to prevent dangerous climate change. Skovgaard's careful and sobering analysis shows both the power of three key global institutions - the IMF, G20, and OECD - to influence major financial reforms like ending fossil fuel subsidies, but also how their worldviews reinforce current practices that militate against the needed paradigm shift in climate finance. Anyone who wants to understand the opportunities and limits of these institutions' economization of climate change will want to read this book.' Steven Bernstein, University of Toronto

The effort to address climate change cuts across a wide range of non-environmental actors and policy areas, including international economic institutions such as the Group of Twenty (G20), International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). These institutions do not tend to address climate change so much as an environmental issue, but as an economic one, a dynamic referred to as 'economisation'. Such economisation can have profound consequences for how environmental problems are addressed. This book explores how the G20, IMF, and OECD have addressed climate finance and fossil fuel subsidies, what factors have shaped their specific approaches, and the consequences of this economisation of climate change. Focusing on the international level, it is a valuable resource for graduate students, researchers, and policymakers in the fields of politics, political economy and environmental policy. This title is also available as Open Access.

Preface
Part I. Introduction: 1. Introduction: The economisation of climate change and why it matters in the case of international economic institutions
Part II. Setting the Stage: 2. A framework for studying institutional output and its alignment, causes and consequences
3. The three institutions, their roles and the environment
Part III. Fossil Fuel Subsidies: 4. Fossil fuel subsidies: Key issues
5. The G20 and fossil fuel subsidy reform: The catalyst
6. The OECD and fossil fuel subsidies: The knowledge provider
7. The IMF and fossil fuel subsidies: The unexpected environmentalist
8. The alignment of the economic institutions on fossil fuel subsidies: Synergies, but definitions can be divisive
Part IV. Climate Finance: 9. Climate finance: Key issues
10. The G20 and climate finance: Introducing finance ministries to the topic
11. The OECD and climate finance: Development and investment
12. The IMF and climate finance: Carbon pricing rears its head
13. The alignment of the economic institutions on climate finance: Efficiency in development and investments, but also carbon pricing
Part V. Conclusions: 14. Conclusions
References
Index.

Subject Areas: Climate change [RNPG], Petroleum & oil industries [KNBP], Political economy [KCP], Environmental economics [KCN]