It is estimated that tackling the climate emergency will require trillions of dollars of investment a year over the coming decades. These investments will protect against catastrophe, improve health and wellbeing, and generate profits. Yet investors are still not providing funding at this scale. This is partly because they seek short term profits, while green investments might be more profitable over longer periods of time - although few investors consider the cost of inaction on the climate emergency when assessing viability. It’s also because some green technology is in its earlier stages and so the possibilities for profit are more risky. 

Public banks that make green investments could overcome these barriers. These are banks that are backed by governments. This means they can borrow money and lend it to green investments more cheaply than private banks, by using lower interest rates. Their specialist focus on green investments means they are better at spotting profitable opportunities. They also invest more patiently, waiting for investments to pay off.

This reduces risk, so public banks can focus on funding innovation and longer term investments. It also means that private investors are more likely to co-invest with public investment banks, creating a bigger overall green investment. But this is reliant on governments not closing or selling the public investment bank, which can cause private investors to drop out, when the situation looks more risky and unreliable to them.

When you take this action, draw 1, 2, or 3 additional Local Project cards if you have 2–3, 4–5, or 6 or more Innovation tags in this card's stack.

You may do this once per round.

• Green investment banks (OECD) 

• Aligning Public Investments with Sustainable and Climate Goals (Inter-American Development Bank)

• Public money must pave the way for private investment in climate-change adaptation (The Economist)

• Patient finance, state investment banks and public finance (Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose, University College London) 

• Stakeholder Banks (New Economics Foundation)

• Join a stakeholder or community banks, democratically-run alternatives to public banks that may similarly have local, green and financial stability goals. 

• Campaign for your government to set up regional public investment banks to fund local retrofit and climate infrastructure.