In the case of governments, the link between green issuance and any additional green spending is tenuous at best. Germany, for example, identified €12.7 billion of eligible spending from last year’s budget – hardly an indication that the green Bund programme will be financing anything that was not already happening anyway.

Biden’s bet on small-scale nuclear. As part of his decarbonisation drive, the president-elect wants to spur development of small modular reactors (SMRs), so that they can help balance the grid alongside surging renewable output. Small-scale nuclear’s biggest rival natural gas can already be ordered off the shelf and constructed quickly and cheaply.