Conflicts within Finance Capital and Implications for the Climate Crisis

Particularly in the era of financialisation, the logic of financial capital is to focus on (short-term) profits, often at the expense of environmental concerns in general, and climate in particular.  Indeed if this were not so then there would likely be no climate crisis.   Yet in recent times many groups, including elements of finance capital, have called for greater emphasis on long-term considerations including on climate.  What is it that makes some parts of finance capital focus on climate issues while other parts eschew them?  What motivates climate-interested investors and what is their potential for addressing the climate crisis?  We address these questions through a combination of qualitative analysis of interviews and quantitative analysis of the unique Finance and Climate Database containing over 30,000 observations of shareholding units in very large corporations.