Biden’s Big Plans Bypass Green-Linked Debt That Investors Crave
- U.S. has lagged European governments in green bond boom
- Any issuance would be a way off as Treasury is slow to change
An Electric Vehicle charging station in Monterey Park, California.
Photographer: Frederic J. Brown/AFP/Getty Images
Joe Biden wants to spend his way to a greener and more sustainable future for America. For now though, he’ll probably be financing it the old-fashioned way -- with taxes and traditional bonds.
None of the $21 trillion Treasuries market includes bonds linked to the funding of environmentally-friendly projects, despite a seemingly insatiable investor hunger for these new types of ethical assets. Germany, France and Italy have capitalized on it, and the U.K. and Canada are both planning debuts. In the U.S., municipalities have been selling record amounts of green bonds, but the world’s largest seller of debt is conspicuously absent.