Greening the Financial System in USA, Canada and Brazil: A Panel Data Analysis

Abstract

Each country designs its own scheme to achieve green financing and, in general, credit is considered to be a fundamental source of greening financial systems. The novelty of this study resides in that we examined green financing initiatives in USA, Canada and Brazil by focusing on major components of the financial systems before, during and after the 2008 world financial crisis. By means of panel data analysis conducted on observations ranging across the period 1970–2018, we investigated variables such as domestic credit from banks, domestic credit from the financial sector, GDP, N2O emissions, CO2 emissions and the value added from agriculture, forest and fishing activities. According to our findings, domestic credit from banks was insufficient to achieve green financing. Namely, in order to increase economic growth while reducing global warming and climate change, the financial sector should assume a bigger role in funding green investments. Moreover, our results showed that domestic credit from the financial sector contributed to green financing, while CO2 emissions remained a challenge in capping global warming at the 1.5 °C level. Our empirical study supports the idea that economic growth together with policies targeting climate change and global warming can contribute to green financing. Over and above that, governments should strive to design sustainable fiscal and monetary policies that promote green financing.