Climate finance was a major focus at the recent COP28 summit, but one set of game-changing institutions remains largely missing in such conversations: central banks.
Central banks are public institutions, charged with maintaining economic stability through controlling the supply of money in an economy. These banks have enormous power to catalyse a more just, equitable and climate-stable future.
However, our recent research points out that their policies have been slowing down – rather than speeding up – transformative climate action. The problem is these banks focus on financial stability in the near term, which means propping up a status quo which promotes further climate instability. And that means they are making things more unstable in the long term.