Bretton Woods could use a green transition reboot

Bretton Woods could use a green transition reboot

(The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.) LONDON - Venice is a good place to raise the alarm on climate change. Politicians would be hard-pressed to find cities as suitable as "la Serenissima" in which to contemplate streets filled with water. Billionaire BlackRock boss Larry Fink isn't an obvious champion of the little guy threatened by rising tides, but his speech as part of the G20 in the Italian city deserves pondering. Fink brought three key points to the assembled policymakers on Sunday. The first two are already being talked about. If big companies offload their most carbon-intensive activities, that will be good for their personal ESG scores, but not for the planet in general. Private and state-owned companies must also be subject to the same decarbonisation scrutiny. Second, governments need to invest in zero-carbon solutions and rapidly wean their citizens off fossil fuels. If they don't dampen demand, rapidly recovering economies post-pandemic will send oil prices higher than their current lofty $75 a barrel. That could make it even harder for states to decarbonise – especially poor ones – and increase inequality. Fink's third theme addresses the looming green problem with