1998-2014. 1 The perceived slowdown has confirmed the beliefs of climate change doubters and fueled a debate on climate science widely covered by the media. This ongoing debate is stimulated by three important considerations.The first and most obvious consideration is that not all countries and industries are equally affected by climate change. As in other policy areas, the introduction of a new regulation naturally gives rise to policy debates between the losers, who exaggerate the costs, and the winners, who emphasize the urgency of the new policy. The second consideration is that climate mitigation has typically not been a "front burner" political issue. Politicians often tend to "kick the can down the road" rather than introduce policies that are costly in the short run and risk alienating their constituencies-all the more so if there is a perception that the climate change debate is not yet fully settled and that climate change mitigation may not require urgent attention. The third consideration is that although the scientific evidence on the link between carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) emissions and the greenhouse effect is overwhelming, there is considerable uncertainty regarding the rate of increase in average temperatures over the next 20 or 30 years and the effects on climate change. There is also considerable uncertainty regarding the "tipping point" beyond which catastrophic climate dynamics are set in motion. 2 As with financial crises, the observation of growing imbalances can alert analysts to the inevitability of a crash but still leave them in the dark as to when the crisis is likely to occur.This uncertainty should be understood as an increasingly important risk factor for investors, particularly long-term investors. At a minimum, the climate science consensus tells us that the risks of a climate disaster are substantial and rising. Moreover, as further evidence of climate events linked to humancaused emissions of CO 2 accumulates and global temperatures keep rising, there is an increased likelihood of policy intervention to limit these emissions. 3 The prospect of such interventions has increased significantly following the Paris Climate Change Conference and the unanimous adoption of a new universal agreement on climate change. 4 Of course, other plausible scenarios can be envisioned whereby the Paris agreement is not followed by meaningful policies. From an investor's perspective, there is therefore a risk with respect to both climate change and the timing of climate mitigation policies. Still, overall, investors should-and some are beginning to-factor carbon risk into their investment policies. It is fair to say, however, that there is still little awareness of this risk factor among (institutional)

This paper investigates the emerging global landscape for public-private co-investments in infrastructure. The creation of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and other so-called "infrastructure investment platforms" are an attempt to tap into the pool of both public and private long-term savings in order to channel the latter into much needed infrastructure projects. This paper puts these new initiatives into perspective by critically reviewing the literature and experience with public private partnerships in infrastructure. It concludes by identifying the main challenges policy makers and other actors will need to confront going forward and to turn infrastructure into an asset class of its own.

This paper proposes an institutional solution that can help unlock the flow of low yielding long-term savings towards high-return infrastructure investments. The solution is to transform public-private partnerships (PPPs) in infrastructure as well as the classic model of multilateral development banks. Instead of thinking of PPPs as bilateral contracts between a private concession operator and a government agency, we argue that they should be conceived as partnerships that also involve a development bank and long-term institutional investors as partners. We propose a new model for development banks, which is to transform them into originate-anddistribute banks for PPP infrastructure projects. The new model allows them to conserve their valuable capital and leverage their expertise and capabilities by making them available to long-term institutional investors.

This paper argues that there is a Coasean Bargain available to banks, Long-term Investors, and Bank Regulators around a particular form of -Contingent Capital‖. By purchasing rights to issue equity in crisis events at a pre-specified price from Long-term Investors, banks can ensure that they will have sufficient regulatory capital available when they need it most: in a crisis. By selling these rights (effectively, a form of crisis insurance) long-term investors can monetize their counter-cyclical investments strategies in banks and, thus, obtain an adequate return as long-term investors. Bank Regulators, in turn, gain as they can thereby implement a more efficient form of equity-capital regulation. Banks have a special need to maintain their equity-capital base in the event of a crisis. Sovereign Wealth Funds and other long-term investors have proved to be the only available counterparties for banks in crisis times. This is why we argue that these investors must be able to monetize the countercyclical asset-management strategies they are trying to implement by obtaining a higher return on their cash reserves. The form of contingent capital we propose (Capital Access Bond) reflects a balance between investors' preferences, issuers' constraints, and regulators' objectives. 1 We thank the editors of Economic Policy and three referees for their helpful comments. We are grateful to Pierre Lepicard,