The Smart Money Is Turning Out to Be Green Money

Climate and money are too often divorced in our imaginations, the assumption being that you can’t make money or properly run an economy and keep the climate from imploding at the same time. People who actually handle money for a living could tell you otherwise.

Banks, for example, made more money last year securing loans and bonds for clean-energy projects than they did for fossil fuels, Bloomberg’s Tim Quinson reported last week. The $3.7 billion that banks earned in green-debt fees was down from $4.2 billion in 2024, eroded by the Trump administration’s relentless attacks on clean energy and other political headwinds around the world. And green-debt issuance was led primarily by European banks while US lenders championed the dirtier stuff.