ABSTRACT

While climate change has been a public policy issue for decades, central banks have only recently considered it relevant to their objectives. Beginning in 2015, the Bank of England (BoE) was among the first movers to do so. This article illustrates how two institutional features were key in enabling this response. First, the macroprudential framework that developed in the wake of the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) has provided the key ideas that central bankers have used to understand climate change in relation to their objectives. Additionally, government support for BoE action on climate change was also essential in empowering the BoE by setting a transition pathway and providing political legitimacy. The result has been BoE policies that not only seek to limit climate-related risks but also actively shift credit toward greener enterprises. However, this article argues that this has not amounted to a green paradigm shift in the BoE's institutional role, but is better understood as a thermostatic mode of policy innovation. While the BoE's hierarchy of goals have not changed, the types of policy problems relevant to those goals has shifted substantially. Finally, this article offers reflections on the scope and durability of the BoE's approach to climate change in this context. This article contributes to the literature on central banking and climate change beyond the BoE by providing a framework for understanding the possibilities and limitations of current central bank approaches to climate change.

摘要

尽管气候变化几十年来一直是一个公共政策问题，但各国央行直到最近才认为它与其目标相关。从 2015 年开始，英格兰银行 (BoE) 是最早采取这一行动的银行之一。本文阐述了两个制度特征如何成为实现这一应对措施的关键。首先，全球金融危机（GFC）后制定的宏观审慎框架为央行行长们提供了理解气候变化及其目标的关键理念。此外，政府对英国央行气候变化行动的支持对于通过设定过渡路径和提供政治合法性赋予英国央行权力也至关重要。其结果是英国央行的政策不仅寻求限制气候相关风险，而且积极将信贷转向绿色企业。政策创新恒温模式。尽管英国央行的目标层次没有改变，但与这些目标相关的政策问题类型已经发生了重大变化。最后，本文对英国央行在这一背景下应对气候变化的方法的范围和持久性进行了反思。本文通过提供一个框架来理解当前央行应对气候变化的方法的可能性和局限性，为英国央行以外的有关央行和气候变化的文献做出了贡献。