SOAS Research Online

Abstract

This article examines how financial institutions, such as pension funds and insurance companies, have interpreted and used UN-issued climate change management policies. A critical discourse approach is used to analyse material issued by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the World Bank Group and some business and investment consultancies, with interview data supplementing the document analysis. It is argued that although policymakers and business consultants have been eager to appropriate the discourses of financial services, they have not produced guidance on how the outputs of climate science might best be used to allocate managed capital. In terms of outcomes, financial services remain on the periphery of policy implementation, attention has been deflected from the emitters of greenhouse gases, and policy objectives have been frustrated. By unspoken fiat, the market is here the new truth that cannot be contradicted.