Report Climate Change

Geneva Reports on the World Economy

Geneva 25: Climate and Debt

Even in a one-country world, the link between climate and debt leads to complicated questions. However, the planet consists of many countries, each with its own interests and resource limitations. This creates an additional challenge related to aligning individual country interests with the global interest of limiting temperature rises.
This report discusses these challenges by focusing attention on how climate mitigation and adaptation is paid for, and who pays for it. This requires thinking about instruments such as sovereign bonds, carbon credits, conditional official grants, and debt relief from both public and private sources.
The report suggests that no single instrument is right for all countries or at all times and puts forward six proposals and policy recommendations that can jointly address climate change and debt sustainability by focusing on financial instruments as a means of incentivising and committing governments to do the right thing and providing fiscal space for climate investment in countries that could not otherwise afford it.

Publication file

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Citation

Zettelmeyer, J, U Panizza, M Gulati, L Buchheit and P Bolton (eds) (2022), Geneva 25: Climate and Debt, CEPR Press, London, https://cepr.org/publications/books-and-reports/geneva-25-climate-and-debt

Citation

Bolton, P, L Buchheit, and M Gulati (2022), “Climate and Debt: Introduction“, in U Panizza, and J Zettelmeyer (eds), Geneva 25: Climate and Debt, CEPR Press, London. https://cepr.org/chapters/climate-and-debt-introduction

Citation

Bolton, P, L Buchheit, and M Gulati (2022), “Four perspectives on climate change“, in U Panizza, and J Zettelmeyer (eds), Geneva 25: Climate and Debt, CEPR Press, London. https://cepr.org/chapters/four-perspectives-climate-change

Citation

Bolton, P, L Buchheit, and M Gulati (2022), “Fiscal constraints“, in U Panizza, and J Zettelmeyer (eds), Geneva 25: Climate and Debt, CEPR Press, London. https://cepr.org/chapters/fiscal-constraints

Citation

Bolton, P, L Buchheit, and M Gulati (2022), “Debt for climate: Sustainability-linked and green bonds“, in U Panizza, and J Zettelmeyer (eds), Geneva 25: Climate and Debt, CEPR Press, London. https://cepr.org/chapters/debt-climate-sustainability-linked-and-green-bonds

Citation

Bolton, P, L Buchheit, and M Gulati (2022), “Credit for climate: The promise of carbon offsets“, in U Panizza, and J Zettelmeyer (eds), Geneva 25: Climate and Debt, CEPR Press, London. https://cepr.org/chapters/credit-climate-promise-carbon-offsets

Citation

Bolton, P, L Buchheit, and M Gulati (2022), “Debt relief for climate? Fiscal support and climate-friendly debt restructuring“, in U Panizza, and J Zettelmeyer (eds), Geneva 25: Climate and Debt, CEPR Press, London. https://cepr.org/chapters/debt-relief-climate-fiscal-support-and-climate-friendly-debt-restructuring

Citation

Bolton, P, L Buchheit, and M Gulati (2022), “Conclusion: Climate and Debt“, in U Panizza, and J Zettelmeyer (eds), Geneva 25: Climate and Debt, CEPR Press, London. https://cepr.org/chapters/conclusion-climate-and-debt