Clean Is the New Green: Clean Energy Finance and Deployment Through Green Banks

One need not look far to find predictions of the heavy toll that climate change will take on the global economy, public health, and the environment. The latest Assessment Report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, for instance, projected that escalating climate change will increase the risk of "severe ill-health and disrupted livelihoods for large urban populations due to inland flooding," "[s]ystemic risks due to extreme weather events leading to breakdown of infrastructure networks and critical services," "mortality and morbidity during periods of extreme heat," and "food insecurity and the breakdown of food systems," among other threats. The U.S. Department of Defense echoed these conclusions in a recent report on climate-driven instability, finding that "[r]ising global temperatures, changing precipitation patterns, climbing sea levels, and more extreme weather events will intensify the challenges of global instability, hunger, poverty, and conflict." Not mincing words, the Pentagon went on to add that likely impacts include "food and water shortages, pandemic disease, disputes over refugees and resources, and destruction by natural disasters in regions across the globe."