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Stretching scales? Risk and sociality in climate finance

Author

Listed:
  • Brett Christophers

    (Department of Social and Economic Geography, Uppsala University, Sweden)

  • Patrick Bigger

    (Lancaster Environment Centre, Lancaster University, UK)

  • Leigh Johnson

    (Department of Geography, University of Oregon, USA)

Abstract

The heterodox literature on financial risk has in recent years focused predominantly on how risk is distributed, and on the market instabilities and social inequalities that different risk distributions seed. Typically much less discussed is the constitution of financial risk, which is this article’s concern. Drawing empirical examples from two climate financial instruments, its particular interest is in the changing scale – social, spatial and temporal – of the “risk pools†associated with different financial products: the populations across which the products in question serve to aggregate underlying risk. The article explores how, against a historical backdrop of four decades of scale compression in the shape of risk individualization under neoliberalism, certain novel climate financial products seemingly indicate a contrary stretching of the risk pool. The article critically examines sovereign catastrophe insurance pools and green (climate) bonds, highlighting both the significance of the stretching that they effect but also the tensions and limits apparent in this emergent dynamic.

Suggested Citation

  • Brett Christophers & Patrick Bigger & Leigh Johnson, 2020. "Stretching scales? Risk and sociality in climate finance," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 52(1), pages 88-110, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:envira:v:52:y:2020:i:1:p:88-110
    DOI: 10.1177/0308518X18819004
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

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    2. Perry, Keston K., 2020. "The New ‘Bond-age’, Climate Crisis and the Case for Climate Reparations: Unpicking Old/New Colonialities of Finance for Development within the SDGs," SocArXiv h9s2z, Center for Open Science.
    3. Carè, R. & Weber, O., 2023. "How much finance is in climate finance? A bibliometric review, critiques, and future research directions," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 64(C).
    4. McCauley, Darren & Pettigrew, Kerry A. & Todd, Iain & Milchram, Christine, 2023. "Leaders and laggards in the pursuit of an EU just transition," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 205(C).
    5. Collier, Stephen J. & Elliott, Rebecca & Lehtonen, Turo-kimmo, 2021. "Climate change and insurance," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 110452, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    6. Leigh Johnson & Tahira Shariff Mohamed & Ian Scoones & Masresha Taye, 2023. "Uncertainty in the drylands: Rethinking in/formal insurance from pastoral East Africa," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 55(8), pages 1928-1950, November.

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