Climate Spotlight 2024

Oppenheimer's Head of Public Finance Beth Coolidge and Columbus Auditor Megan Kilgore delve into the future of public finance and human infrastructure on a wide range of topics, from affordable housing and workforce development to public health, climate resiliency, and digital access.

As extreme weather events occur with more frequency across the country, Michael Gaughan, executive director of the Vermont Bond Bank, says municipal bond banks can help smaller communities deal with the effects of them. Gaughan speaks with The Bond Buyer's Lynne Funk on the effects of climate change and how the various levels of government can work together to address it.

Proposed guidelines for federal tax credits could undermine the effort to build a clean hydrogen market, critics say.

To meet the ambitious goals of the Environmental Protection Agency's Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, innovative financing models can be adapted from established municipal finance systems.

With a myriad of challenges facing state and local governments to fund vast infrastructure needs amid a shifting climate and severe weather events, there are government officials across the country that have begun to address them head on. Paying for them is one of the biggest challenges.

As EVs and fuel-efficient cars become more common, states and Congress are eying alternative revenues like road user charges.

The majority of the debt sold for the state's community choice aggregators came through CCCFA, a conduit issuer that ranked third among all issuers nationwide for volume issued in 2023.

Population growth has spurred economic growth in the South. But the changing climate, and risks climate change poses there, may turn that equation on its head.

Local rainfall standards, which affect the design of everything from roads to bridges and stormwater systems, offer a clue whether a city or state is taking infrastructure resilience seriously. Outdated standards remain in many areas, like in the Pacific Northwest.

The steady demand for municipal bonds in high-risk areas underscores the complex relationship between climate change and financial markets.