TY - JOUR
T1 - In the name of COVID-19
T2 - Is the ECB fuelling the climate crisis?
AU - Cojoianu, T. F.
AU - Collins, E.
AU - Hoepner, A. G. F.
AU - Magill, D.
AU - O’Neill, T.
AU - Schneider, F. I.
N1 - Funding Information:
We are very grateful to the editor, Prof. Ingmar Schumacher for the careful guidance and suggestions towards improving our paper. We acknowledge that this work has been supported by funding from the IRC and the EU Horizon 2020 Marie Sklodowska-Curie Grant Agreement No. 713279 (CLNE/2018/202), Science Foundation Ireland’s AI for Societal Good Challenge, the International Network for Sustainable Financial Policy Insights, Research and Exchange (INSPIRE), ClimateWorks Foundation and Mistra Financial Systems. Authors are listed alphabetically. All remaining errors are our own.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2020, The Author(s).
PY - 2020/8
Y1 - 2020/8
N2 - We offer preliminary evidence drawing on a novel dataset of corporate bonds issued in the European energy sector since January 2020 in combination with the European Central Bank’s (ECB) purchases under the Pandemic Emergency Purchase Programme (PEPP) in response to COVID-19. We show that the likelihood of a European energy company bond to be bought as part of the ECB’s programme increases with the greenhouse gas (GHG) intensity of the bond issuing firm. We also find weaker evidence that the ECB’s PEPP portfolio during the pandemic is likely to become tilted towards companies with anti-climate lobbying activities and companies with less transparent GHG emissions disclosure. Our findings imply that, at later stages of the COVID-19 recovery, an in-depth analysis may be necessary to understand if, and if yes why, the ECB fuelled the climate crisis.
AB - We offer preliminary evidence drawing on a novel dataset of corporate bonds issued in the European energy sector since January 2020 in combination with the European Central Bank’s (ECB) purchases under the Pandemic Emergency Purchase Programme (PEPP) in response to COVID-19. We show that the likelihood of a European energy company bond to be bought as part of the ECB’s programme increases with the greenhouse gas (GHG) intensity of the bond issuing firm. We also find weaker evidence that the ECB’s PEPP portfolio during the pandemic is likely to become tilted towards companies with anti-climate lobbying activities and companies with less transparent GHG emissions disclosure. Our findings imply that, at later stages of the COVID-19 recovery, an in-depth analysis may be necessary to understand if, and if yes why, the ECB fuelled the climate crisis.
KW - climate finance
KW - fossil fuels
KW - green central banking
KW - green economic recovery
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85087670180&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1007/s10640-020-00450-z
DO - 10.1007/s10640-020-00450-z
M3 - Comment/debate
AN - SCOPUS:85087670180
SN - 0924-6460
SP - 481
EP - 486
JO - Environmental and Resource Economics
JF - Environmental and Resource Economics
ER -