The Carbon-Free Regions Handbook: Finance

The document outlines four primary categories of financial interventions for regional governments to accelerate the energy transition: increasing capital availability, implementing first-cost solutions, creating market incentives, and reducing procurement costs. It details specific mechanisms such as green investment banks, energy savings performance contracts, carbon pricing, and reverse auctions, providing examples of legislation and programs from various global jurisdictions to illustrate their application.

• Regional governments can increase capital availability for low-carbon projects through public-private partnerships, specifically green investment banks (GIBs), which are designed to "facilitate private investment in local low-carbon, climate-resilient projects by focusing on gaps in the market."
• To overcome the high up-front costs of carbon-reduction, the guide suggests 'first-cost solutions' such as Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) programs. These allow building owners to fund energy-efficiency upgrades and repay them via property tax assessments, meaning "financing stays with the building rather than moving with the individual or company."
• Procurement costs for assets like electric vehicles and solar installations can be lowered through scale-based strategies, such as reverse auctions where "sellers are competing to provide the lowest price" and aggregate purchasing programs.

APA

RMI (2018). The Carbon-Free Regions Handbook: Finance. https://rmi.org/resources/carbon-free-regions-handbook-finance/

Chicago

RMI. The Carbon-Free Regions Handbook: Finance. 2018. https://rmi.org/resources/carbon-free-regions-handbook-finance/.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=RMI |title=The Carbon-Free Regions Handbook: Finance |date=27 August 2018 |url=https://rmi.org/resources/carbon-free-regions-handbook-finance/ |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{rmi2018carbonfree, author = {{RMI}}, title = {{The Carbon-Free Regions Handbook: Finance}}, institution = {RMI}, year = {2018}, month = aug, url = {https://rmi.org/resources/carbon-free-regions-handbook-finance/}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }