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Promoting investment in low carbon "clean" sectors has gained popularity over the last years under the heading of sustainable finance, at the same time raising concerns about adverse welfare effects of such policies. We analyze the economic impact of subsidizing investment in "clean" industries in a stylized two-sector small open economy model. Such a reform increases gross wages, but reduces national income due to the distortion of capital. At given national emissions cap, worldwide emissions rise because imports of the high-carbon good will increase. When adapting the emissions cap, the environmental policy becomes laxer if it is dominated by income effects or by mitigating losses arising from the distortion of the allocation of capital. At the same time, the shrinking high carbon sector reduces income gains from a higher cap and thus works toward a stricter policy. Results are similar if capital in "dirty" industries is taxed. Though sustainable finance policies do seem wasteful, we provide a rationalization in a setting with irreversible investment, where a "green" government" uses such a policy to induce stricter environmental measures after a possible switch to a "conservative" government.

Es ist zu erwarten, dass die EU-Taxonomie für nachhaltige Aktivitäten den Weg für eine differenzierte Behandlung von Kapitalanlagen bereitet. Eine Förderung »grüner« Finanzanlagen führt aber systematisch zu Einkommensverlusten aufgrund von Produktivitätsdifferenzen verschiedener Anlagen, während die Treibhausgasemissionen in der EU durch die Deckelung der Emissionsrechte unverändert bleiben. Dem Klimaschutz schadet eine derartige Politik aufgrund der induzierten Ausdehnung emissionsintensiver Produktion außerhalb der EU. Während die politische Unterstützung einer Politik der Green Finance aufgrund ihrer Bindungswirkung auf zukünftige Regierungen erklärt werden kann, ist eine Festlegung der EU auf zukünftige Klimaziele zur Vermeidung von Effizienzverlusten der Investitionssteuerung mittels der Taxonomie vorzuziehen.

We analyse the economic impact of using carbon pricing revenue to fund the EU budget. Such a reform would redistribute from countries with above average carbon intensive production to less carbon intensive countries. Once the reform is implemented, the low carbon countries will prefer a lower carbon price, i.e. laxer climate policy at the EU level, than before the reform. For high carbon countries the opposite is true. As a result, EU climate policy becomes less ambitious and less disputed. We also analyse an extension of the model in which consumption generates carbon emissions that are not covered by the emission certificate regulation, and we consider the impact of changes in EU climate policy on the rest of the world as well as global emissions.