Fossil fuel risk bond programs: A policy innovation makes headway in the Pacific Northwest

In 2016 the Center for Sustainable Economy (CSE) proposed a solution for addressing the market failures associated with construction and operation of fossil fuel infrastructure--fossil fuel risk bond (FFRB) programs. There are two broad categories of market failure associated with fossil fuel infrastructure--climate change, which is driven by the release of greenhouse gases (GHG) from this infrastructure, and the uncompensated physical and economic damages to land, air, and water that communities routinely experience associated with leaks, spills, accidents and abandonment of coal mines, oil and gas wells, pipelines, refineries, oil trains, LNG trains, and fossil fuel export terminals.