Green finance is built on a promise: that capital can be redirected to support the transition to a low-carbon economy while avoiding the environmental mistakes of the past. That promise is getting harder to keep.
The technologies needed for decarbonisation of electric vehicles, wind turbines, batteries and grid infrastructure rely on large quantities of critical minerals. Extracting those materials, even from remote places such as Greenland, remains environmentally disruptive, socially contested and politically fraught.
