Financiamento e transição ecológica: elementos conceituais, fatores políticos-institucionais e investigação empírica para o Brasil

Abstract

The theme of this dissertation refers to the relationship between the financial sector and the environment, with particular emphasis on climate finance, that is, the financial flow necessary to drive the transition to an environmentally sustainable economy. The objective is to understand the relationship between financing and climate change from three perspectives: theoretical, institutional and empirical. For the theoretical perspective, initially, an approximation between the scientific research programs of ecological economics and that of post-Keynesian economics is sought, in order to offer a contribution to the consolidation of a post-Keynesian ecological macroeconomics. A possible synthesis will be obtained by evaluating the points of convergence between the two approaches from the epistemological, theoretical and political action levels. Once this synthesis is established, an attempt will be made to position finance as an important category in promoting sustainability. The institutional perspective will explore initiatives, principles, agreements, programs focused on the theme and multilateral cooperation funds focused on climate finance, more precisely the Amazon Fund and the Green Climate Fund. Recent transformations in central banks and public banks from developments in countries committed to climate change will also be explored. As for the empirical perspective, ARDL models will be specified for the period 1978-2020, to find the relationships between financial development and environmental degradation in Brazil. Financial development will be found through an index built through the statistical technique of Principal Component Analysis. Variables for deforestation, for foreign direct investment, for renewable energy and for the productive sector of the economy will also be included in the model. As a result, it is found that: i) in the theoretical perspective, there are several points of contact between the two approaches and the State is presented as the main financier in the green transition, as only it can provide long-term credit linked to very high projects risk; ii) from the institutional perspective, two movements were identified, the first is formed by voluntary adhesion initiatives guided by non-coercive regulatory adjustments that recommend ecological criteria in decisions on credit granting, while the second circumscribes the effort of structural transformation of institutions economic ones such as central banks and public development banks; and iii) from an empirical perspective, it was found that financial development worsens environmental quality in Brazil.