Global warming is wreaking havoc on so many levels, but climate action is costly and presents policymakers with difficult tradeoffs. High debt, rising interest rates, and weaker growth prospects make public finances harder to balance and climate goals harder to achieve. This is where fiscal policy and climate mitigation meet and why the IMF Fiscal Affairs Department is trying to help countries manage their limited resources. Economists Christine Richmond and Raphael Lam work on climate policy and the annual publications of the IMF Fiscal Monitor. In this podcast, they say governments now face a policy trilemma between achieving climate goals, fiscal sustainability, and political feasibility.
Transcript: https://bit.ly/3sT6JmP
Carbon pricing is steadily emerging as one of the most viable solutions to reducing global emissions, but shedding its contentious past to build a global consensus is still a work in progress. Economist Ian Parry has championed the idea of carbon pricing long before it was fashionable- or even considered feasible by more than a handful of countries. Parry is the principal environmental fiscal policy expert in the IMF Fiscal Affairs Department and has made it his mission to present- on behalf of the institution, the benefits of incorporating climate risks into the cost of doing business through a carbon tax.
Transcript: https://bit.ly/47jrAP7
Amid growing calls to deglobalize the economy, Raghuram Rajan says not so fast. Rajan, a former Governor of the Bank of India and former IMF Chief Economist, delivered this year's Per Jacobsson Lecture, in which he argues that continued globalization is our best chance to tackle climate change.
Transcript: https://bit.ly/3EVhCIC
Watch the webcast of the Per Jacobsson Lecture at IMF.org
As climate change looms ever larger, most economists agree that a carbon tax would go a long way toward reducing emissions. But carbon taxes and related policies often face deep political constraints, and many are looking at sustainable investing as a way forward. Economist Divya Kirti is coauthor along with Dalya Elmalt and Deniz Igan of a working paper titled Limits to Private Climate Mitigation. In this podcast, Kirti talks about how such market forces could help make meaningful progress in addressing climate change. Transcript: https://bit.ly/3mDPYXj
No country has been spared the effects of changing weather patterns but developing countries–and island states, in particular, are facing the brunt of climate change while not having contributed to its root causes. Prime Minister of Barbados, Mia Mottley, and Madagascar's Finance Minister, Richard Randriamandranto, joined IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva to discuss the effects of natural disasters on their economies and how policies can be designed to help countries adapt to the new climate reality. The podcast is a compilation of excerpts from their discussion. Transcript: https://bit.ly/3hbeR9x
Watch a webcast of the full event at IMF.org
Despite long-standing warnings from scientists about the risks of a pandemic, the world was simply unprepared for this one. Ulrich Volz says the same is true for climate change. Volz is the director of the Center for Sustainable Finance at SOAS University of London and in this podcast, he says many countries will find themselves in a permanent crisis mode unless concerted efforts are made to strengthen investment to mitigate and adapt to climate change, Volz's article Investing in a Green Recovery is published in the June 2020 issue of Finance and Development Magazine.
As the average annual global temperature is expected to rise by 4 degrees Celsius or more by 2100, economic output in countries with hot climates continues to fall. And given that most low-income countries are located in hot regions, low-income countries are bearing the brunt of the negative economic costs of climate change even though they contribute very little to the greenhouse gas emissions that cause it. In this podcast, IMF economists Sebastian Acevedo and Natalija Novta say the increasing frequency and severity of natural disasters is having a negative impact on growth.
Acevedo and Novta are coauthors of Weather Shocks and Output in Low-Income Countries:Adaptation and the Role of Policies