The Interdisciplinary Observatory on Climate Change is launching the 23rd volume of Cadernos do OIMC, our ongoing series dedicated to interdisciplinary academic papers on the various aspects of the climate emergency. In its first issue published entirely in English, Cadernos features the article Climate Obstruction through Ratings: A Research Agenda, penned by political scientist Pedro Lange Machado (Cebrap). The Observatory also plans to publish a Portuguese translation of the text later in 2026.
Read a summary of the text:
This article develops a research agenda on the role of credit rating agencies (CRAs) in climate obstruction. While recent scholarship has examined how a variety of actors may delay or obstruct climate action, the role of global financial actors remains underexplored. Building on International Political Economy scholarship on private market authority and sovereign debt, the article argues that the “Big Three” CRAs (S&P Global, Moody’s, and Fitch Ratings) constitute important yet overlooked agents of climate obstruction.
With a PhD in Political Science from the Institute of Social and Political Studies (IESP-UERJ), Pedro Lange Machado is currently undertaking postdoctoral research at the Brazilian Centre for Analysis and Planning (Cebrap) and is an associate researcher at the International Centre for a Sustainable and Just Transition at Witten/Herdecke University ([tra:ce]). As an author, he has published the book Political Risk and the Politics of Risk: Credit Rating Agencies and the Political Process in Brazil and Argentina (Palgrave Macmillan, 2025), as well as a series of articles on credit rating agencies (CRAs) from the perspective of political economy. He is also co-author of the report Bioeconomy Financing Ecosystem in the Legal Amazon: Diagnosis, Experiences and Recommendations for Integrated Actions (Amazon Concertation, 2025), and served on the executive secretariat of the Task Force for Global Mobilisation against Climate Change (TF-CLIMA) during Brazil’s G20 presidency in 2024. His research focuses on issues relating to IPE, credit rating agencies and the political economy of green finance and the climate transition.
