The G20’s finance ministers and central-bank governors have begun to undertake a stunning shift in mindset. They have become increasingly convinced that “green finance” – financing environmentally sustainable growth – should be at the center of economic-development strategies. Such an idea, until recently confined to a fringe of academics and policymakers, is potentially one of the most important new “truths” of the twenty-first century.
The conventional economic-development model viewed environmental protection as a “luxury good” that societies could afford only after they became rich. Such thinking explains why the dramatic growth in global income, 80-fold in real terms during the last century, has been accompanied by a decline, according to the United Nations Environment Programme, in natural capital in 127 of 140 countries.
