Green quantitative easing is having a moment. As the European Central Bank restarts the ordinary brown kind of money printing, buying corporate and public sector bonds, a broad range of commentators, from left wing activists to BlackRock’s head of official institutions, argue that central banks ought to put their balance sheet power in play to green the world. But turning to the central banks is a counsel of despair. The technocrats should be a last resort; it is politicians who should be in the vanguard.
Owen Sanderson,
November 12, 2019
