The Political Economy of Green Bonds in Emerging Markets: South Africa's Faltering Transition

Funding low-carbon transitions to address climate change is one of the  major challenges of our time. Green bonds have emerged as a powerful  tool to enlist institutional investors’ wealth for these transitions.  But despite exponential growth in many parts of the world, the green  bond market in South Africa has been stalling. This book project  grapples with this puzzle. Firstly, it debunks some of the promises  underpinning green bond markets and traces the manifold practices  undergirding its promotion. Secondly, it identifies some barriers  prohibiting the expansion of green bonds in emerging markets and zooms  in on the depoliticizing tendencies a transition premised on financial  innovation produces. Thirdly, this work discloses the idiosyncratic  political economic challenges of a fossil-based economy in transition  and shines a light on the competing elements of a ‘green’ and a ‘just’  transition. It argues that the limited uptake of green bonds can best be  explained by the instrument’s inability to adequately incorporate the  various demands levied on South Africa’s contested transition  trajectory. In so doing, this book contributes important new qualitative  insights into green bond markets-in-the-making and extends political  economic scholarship on finance-led transition endeavors in emerging  markets.