Public Banks can generate enough money for the plan

For decades there has been a concerted effort to try to convince us that the public is dependent on the private sector and that there is very little public finance left to invest in public services and infrastructure. Figures produced by the World Bank and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), for instance, misrepresent the value of public finance by evaluating that public banks have only US$2–5 trillion in assets. Given the many trillions needed to finance climate infrastructure alone, this amount would be a drop in the ocean. However, research undertaken by Thomas Marois at the University of London shows that there are 693 public banks worldwide with assets worth US$37.72 trillion. Public finances amount to over US$73 trillion, once you include central banks and multilaterals such as the Asian Development Bank, as well as pension and sovereign wealth funds. This equals 93 per cent of global gross domestic product. All this public money is urgently needed to directly finance the fight for renewable energy systems in order to avoid the catastrophic consequences of runaway climate change. US$6 trillion need to be raised annually, up to a total of US$90 trillion, for climate infrastructure investments, and the above figures show that public finance institutions have the resources to drive this. Most governments, however, limit themselves and their public finance institutions to incentivizing private companies to invest in the transition to renewable energy by supporting privatization and public-private partnerships (PPPs). Irrespective of countless tax incentives, subsidies and government guarantees, the private sector has shown little 4 | Public Finance for the Future We Want interest in financing a transition away from fossil fuels. Due to over-reliance on the private sector, investments in renewables even dropped by 7 per cent in 2017, according to the International Energy Agency. This trend is likely to worsen as long as we underestimate the potential of public finance and continue to depend on private finance and market mechanisms. The unfolding climate crisis, however, cannot wait for halfmeasures. As the recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report makes clear, ‘all pathways begin now and involve rapid and unprecedented societal transformation’. By contrast, public systems and services have greater success with public investment, leading not only to lower costs but also to better social and environmental results. In Bangladesh, for example, the publicly owned Infrastructure Development Company Limited (IDCOL) provided the capital to install more than three million solar panels in rural areas between 2003 and 2014. This brought electricity to the homes of thirteen million people. A 2017 study by the Transnational Institute recorded 835 reclaimed public services by over 1,600 cities around the world. The report showed that privatized corporations neither guarantee better service quality nor lower prices and increased investments. When municipalities end privatization and re-municipalize a public service, such as water, energy or transportation, they usually prove to be better equipped to provide good services for all than a profit-making private provider.