Green financial power in geoeconomic times: Development banks between Wall Street and Paris

Public climate finance in the third decade of the 21st century is awkwardly positioned between the Wall Street Consensus (WSC), state capitalism, and climate justice goals. Critical political economy and development research has shown that international public climate finance tends to exacerbate rather than address existing hierarchies. This article integrates actor-centered concepts of financial power with critical D/development studies, asking: How does institutional climate policy-making change the financial power of public development banks (PDBs), and what does this mean for Development amid current capitalist transformations such as state capitalism and the WSC? Conceptually, it contributes a framework for analyzing when, where, and how PDBs acquire and mobilize green financial power. Empirically, the framework is applied to the European Investment Bank (EIB). This demonstrates how green financial power can expand the EIB’s means of return creation and scope of influence, while maintaining low risk. It also shows PDBs as a place of struggle where WSC and state capital objectives meet and shape climate finance practices. The article argues that green financial power offers a crucial lens for assessing and engaging in whether public climate finance reinforces or contests existing hierarchies.