The article “How “just” is the “just transition”? A regional analysis of climate finance in the European Union” published in the Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society. This paper, written by Judith Clifton, Daniel Díaz-Fuentes, Marcos Fernández-Gutiérrez and Ana Lara Gómez as part of the GreenPaths Project and JustGreen Jean Monnet chair analyses the regional distribution of climate finance provided by the European Investment Bank (which describes itself as the world’s first climate bank).
The authors created a database of 646 climate projects funded by the EIB between 2021-2023, amounting to a total of €50.9 billion, after identifying the region in which these funds were invested. We then analyse the regional characteristics associated with the amount of climate finance received.
We find that regions with a larger amount of population living in urban areas are those that tend to obtain a higher amount of climate finance. This is observed in large-scale flagship projects funded in major urban areas, such as Grand Paris Express, Köln S-bahn network of Madrid railway node capacity expansion.
In contrast, regions characterized by greater vulnerability to the transition (as measured by the index developed by Federico Bartalucci and Andrés Rodríguez-Pose), which are often rural and/or development-trapped, do not obtain a greater amount of climate finance.
Our results show that, while the EIB is playing a key role in promoting the European Union’s green transition, this role can -and should- be extended to promoting a transition that is also just from a regional perspective: that is, that ensures that no region is left behind.
The article can be accessed here