The Wall Street Consensus in pandemic times: what does it mean for climate-aligned development?

Abstract

ABSTRACT The COVID-19 pandemic has reinforced the dominance of what Daniela Gabor calls the Wall Street Consensus (WSC) as the hegemonic approach to sustainable development. Public commitments to “green recoveries” and climate resilience, growing fiscal deficits in the Global South, and new central bank emergency liquidity measures have created more space for WSC policies. We examine the key WSC climate policy tools – climate infrastructure as an asset class, climate rescuer of last resort, disclosure of climate-related financial risks and carbon pricing – and argue that these will increase financial vulnerability in the Global South while doing little to achieve climate-aligned development.