Finance
Wall Street’s Surprising Quest for Ways to Finance Coal Again
Some banks and investors are flirting with new models for bringing the world’s dirtiest commodity back into mainstream finance.
Since the 2015 Paris climate agreement, “blacklist coal” has become a mantra across much of the finance industry. Banks have stopped providing loans to coal projects, insurers are backing away, and investors are pulling out. Yet over the same period, demand has soared to a record high, helping triple prices for the world’s dirtiest commodity.
Against that backdrop, financiers and nonprofits from around the world are teaming up to develop alternative strategies. The first step, they say: Bring coal back into mainstream finance.