The Urban Climate Finance Network
We are an open international network of more than 50 scholars from institutions in 22 countries around the world
at different career stages, working across different disciplinary fields (economic geography, black geographies, sociology, urban political ecology, postcolonial studies, development studies, urban geography, etc.) on questions of urban climate finance. You can find out more information about the core team members here.
We are always looking to connect with other researchers interested in these questions so if you would like to join our network, please get in touch!
Aims of the network
Out network pursues a set of short- and long-term aims:
First, we seek to create a space for critical debate on theoretical and empirical questions related to urban climate finance. In 2021-2022 our research agenda works to decenter urban climate finance through a set of workshops and masterclasses. Please find more information on this research focus below. Further research activities will follow from these events.
Second, we seek to highlight interdisciplinary work on urban climate finance in order to strengthen the critical and practical efforts of the research community. Our efforts center in particular on opening up more global and plural perspectives that overcome the parochialism of urban and climate finance theory.
Third, we seek to strengthen collaborative efforts amongst different disciplinary research communities on these topics, including, amongst others, scholars working on development, municipal and infrastructure finance, climate and environmental justice, popular and diverse economies, everyday financialization, low-carbon transitions, urban infrastructural change, and critical planning practice. The network aims to facilitate connections and opportunities for collaboration (including but not limited to: joint publications, grant applications, interdisciplinary workshops, sharing opportunities, etc.).
Our research focus 2021-2022: Decentering urban climate finance
The past years have been marked by the emergence of a research agenda on the urban geographies of what is loosely known as ‘climate finance’: climate-attuned financial investments, innovations and expertise (Bridge et al. 2020). Research considering the urban dimensions of climate finance documents how financial institutions and aligned interlocutors portray cities as sites of opportunity for investments and financial experimentation (e.g., Bigger and Webber 2020) and targets urban infrastructures and housing for speculative interventions and accumulation schemes (e.g., Bigger and Millington 2020, Taylor 2020). This work has traced how climate finance focuses on (and ultimately transforms) cities, as well as processes and patterns of inter- and intra-urban accumulation, power, and inequality. However, research documenting the financialisation of urban environments remains primarily concerned with cities in which consolidated financial markets are already the norm, or with case studies that conceptualise ‘climate finance’ in relatively narrow terms (e.g., financial instruments created for the purposes of 'impact' investment). Critical understanding of the new horizons of finance and climate action requires a much broader view of their multifaceted character and expression in diverse urban settings. This consideration calls for scholars to decenter and provincialise the urban climate finance research agenda.
Conceptually, we intend to bring debates on urban climate finance into conversation with existing and evolving work that centers on the multiple global, urban and uneven harms linked to climate change. This implies, for instance, that urban climate finance is not only about understanding the ecological implications and accumulation dynamics of various financial technologies, but also about understanding how these intersect with (or undermine) processes and practices of environmental and economic justice (Pulido, 2016, Jacobs, 2019) in cities (Bond 2019). It requires attending to the various forms of social and environmental violence (and resistance to those) resulting from climate change and environmental degradation in cities, and driven by racial capitalism (Purifoy and Seamster 2020, Ranganathan and Bratman 2020) or imperial modes of living (Wissen and Brand 2017).