Making climate finance work: Insights from ethics, economics and law.
To be published in Cambridge Forum on Corporate Climate Governance.

A planned special issue of Cambridge Forum on Corporate Climate Governance aims to explore climate finance from a cross-disciplinary perspective.

This themed issue will examine the role of finance in the climate transition from ethical, economic, and legal perspectives. A consensus has developed suggesting that mobilizing finance is key to the transition, and that the private financial sector should take the lead in both mobilizing and directing finance, provided that necessary public-sector conditions are met. Those conditions include creating a level playing field and public de-risking of climate asset markets. The aim of this issue is to scrutinize this consensus critically and constructively from an interdisciplinary perspective, addressing five specific themes, as set out below. The overall questions guiding the issue are: What roles are each of private and public finance best suited for in the climate transition and how should these sources of finance be structured to interact with one another?

 

1) There is enough finance for the transition and for preserving nature on which economies depend, but is it in the right place?

2) Financing the preservation of nature

3) Finance for the Global South

4) Between public and private balance sheets: which finance institutions will help us reach the Paris Goals?

5) Long termism in a global financial world infected with short termism

 

Cambridge Forum on Corporate Climate Governance seeks to engage multiple subject disciplines and promote dialogue between policymakers and practitioners as well as academics. The journal therefore encourages authors to use an accessible writing style.

Submission process

The guest editors are inviting submissions of abstracts of up to 1,000 words (plus ten key references) relating to one of the above themes from the perspective of ethics, economics, or law ultimately 30 September 2025. Please send your abstract to the journal at cfg@cambridge.org, copying the guest editors at r.a.j.mees@rug.nl, d.j.bezemer@rug.nl, and cynwill@iu.edu. Further information about the submission process and the scope of the special issue is available here.