How can finance address climate change?
In public discussion, climate finance is often bandied around with banks positioning themselves as positive actors in addressing climate change. But what do they do?
This panel examines how the finance sector is shifting to incorporate climate modelling into its risk assessments for investments, how finance can create new ‘green’ markets and products, be used for investing in ‘green infrastructure’, and how climate finance is being used for addressing international climate injustice for those most affected by climate change such as the Pacific.
This event was presented online on 10 November, 2021.
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Speakers
Gareth Bryant is a senior lecturer in the Department of Political Economy and as economist-in-residence with the Sydney Policy Lab. He researches how public policy and public finance can create more sustainable, equal and democratic economies. His research has focused on issues including climate change, higher education, housing, labour and Indigenous justice. This research crosses the disciplines of heterodox economics, economic geography and economic sociology. Gareth is the author of Carbon Markets in a Climate-Changing Capitalism (Cambridge University Press, 2019).
Tanya Fiedler is a lecturer in Accounting at the University of Sydney Business School and an SEI Fellow. Tanya’s research interests include the fields of carbon accounting, strategy, valuation and market-making. In 2016 at the University of New South Wales (UNSW) she completed her PhD research, which examined the making of Australia’s first nation-wide carbon market. Tanya’s research also examined the calculative practices and technologies by which greenhouse gas emissions were quantified by engineers for that market, so that they could be valued by accounting. Prior to her academic career, Tanya worked as a consultant for Energetics, a specialist carbon and energy consultancy.
Katherine Owens is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Sydney Law School. Her research focuses on how law and governance can enable innovation and ecologically sustainable transformation, particularly in the context of climate and water governance, and her monograph, Environmental Water Markets and Regulation: A Comparative Legal Approach (Routledge/Earthscan), was published in 2017. Before joining the University of Sydney in 2015, Katherine practised for a number of years in State Government and leading commercial firms in Australia and New Zealand, specialising in environmental and planning law.
Tim Stephens is Professor of International Law at the University of Sydney Law School. He teaches and researches in public international law, with his published work focussing on the international law of the sea, international environmental law and international dispute settlement. His major publications include The International Law of the Sea (Hart, 2010, 2016, co-authored with Donald R Rothwell), and International Courts and Environmental Protection (Cambridge University Press, 2009).
This event is part of the Sydney Environment Institute’s Extraction Series that probes the use, impact and future of gas, coal and lead extraction in Australia at a critical point in our changing climate. This event series is part of the Unsettling Resources research project that investigates the dependence of our energy use and systems on conventional energy and the global shift to renewables. Professor Susan Park, Research Lead on the Unsettling Resources project, will open the event.
Header image: Isaac Sloman via Unsplash.