Climate financing by the German government: a win-win strategy?

This article analyzes the German government’s strategies and measures for financing climate and asks whether these policies deliver on the promise of a social-ecological win-win situation. Key political and academic positions on sustainable finance are based on this promise. The article first provides an overview of climate finance policies. Building on an analytical framework of cultural political economy, these policies are then evaluated from the relevant but hitherto underrepresented perspective of trade unions, environmental associations, and relevant civil society actors. The analysis shows that the German government uses a limited concept of climate finance or sustainable finance compared to the view of the interviewees. In the sense of strategic selectivity, the government takes up measures from a financial management and financial science perspective that views the problem as a question of information, transparency, and risk pricing. From the experts’ point of view, however, it excludes more effective measures relating to distribution issues, regulatory or monetary policy, public investment, structural policy, and co-determination. The policies are perceived as socially unbalanced, resulting in dwindling political support. In order to gain broader support, climate finance policies need a new conceptual framework.