Geoffroy Dolphin, Romain A Duval, Hugo Rojas-Romagosa, and Galen Sher
Following the 2022 energy crisis, this paper investigates whether Europe’s ongoing efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions can also enhance its energy security. The global computational general equilibrium model analysis finds that individual policy tools, including carbon pricing, energy efficiency standards, and accelerated permitting procedures for renewables, tend to improve energy security. Compared to carbon pricing, sector-specific regulations deliver larger energy security gains and spread those more evenly across countries, benefitting also some fossil-fuel-intensive economies in Central and Eastern Europe. This finding strengthens the case for a broad climate policy package, which can both achieve Europe’s emissions-reduction goals and deliver sizeable energy security co-benefits. An illustrative package, which would cut emissions in the EU, UK, and EFTA by 55 percent with respect to 1990 levels by 2030, is estimated to improve the two energy security metrics used in this paper by close to 8 percent already by 2030. Beyond the policies analyzed in the model, the paper also discusses the technology, market design, and supply chain reforms that Europe needs for an energy-secure green transition.
Cheng Hoon Lim, Ritu Basu, Yan Carriere-Swallow, Kenichiro Kashiwase, Mahmut Kutlukaya, Mike Li, Ehraz Refayet, Dulani Seneviratne, Mouhamadou Sy, and Ruihua Yang
The transition to a sustainable future in the Asia-Pacific region has global economic significance. Despite driving global growth in recent years, the region's heavy coal reliance led to significant greenhouse gas emissions. Meeting climate mitigation and adaptation needs in emerging and developing Asia requires investment of at least $1.1 trillion annually. Actual investment falls short by about $800 billion. Asia-Pacific’s environmental performance has also hampered its ability to tap into private flows from the fast-growing ESG asset class, keeping the cost of issuing sustainable debt instruments relatively high compared to other regions. This paper provides an overview of the climate finance ecosystem in countries in the Asia-Pacific region and presents strategies to mobilize climate finance for the region’s transition to a sustainable future. The paper identifies challenges, including gaps in the climate information architecture, policy conflicts, global complexities, and emphasizes the need for coordinated action involving governments, central banks, financial supervisors, the IMF, and other multilateral institutions. In particular, • Governments need to establish a well-defined climate strategy with strong institutional oversight and coordination to strengthen the framework on data, taxonomies, and disclosures. Fossil fuel subsidies should be phased out and carbon pricing schemes expanded to create fiscal space for sustainable investments. Strengthening macroeconomic management is essential to attract private capital. • Financial supervisors and central banks should coordinate across jurisdictions to promote global, interoperable disclosure standards, enhance climate risk analysis and reporting, and incorporate climate-related financial risks into prudential frameworks. Developing climate labels for sustainable investment funds and shifting the focus of ESG scores to better capture sustainability and climate impact would foster trust in the evaluations. The IMF can drive climate action by integrating discussions in surveillance activities and strengthening data and statistics—including through capacity building and peer learning—to develop common standards around climate risk measurement and analysis. The Resilience and Sustainability Trust could contribute to reducing financing gaps through its catalytic and reform supporting functions, while multilateral development banks could scale up grant financing and concessional lending, and where appropriate adopt risk-mitigating mechanisms to expand lending capacity. Cooperation among multilateral institutions is essential to align efforts and resources to achieve a balanced allocation between mitigation and adaptation lending.
Ms. Era Dabla-Norris, Mr. Thomas Helbling, Kenichiro Kashiwase, Giacomo Magistretti, and Mouhamadou Sy
Asia and the Pacific’s green transition will have far-reaching implications for the global economy. Over the past decades, the region has become the engine of global economic growth. With relatively heavy reliance on coal and high energy intensity, the region has recently become the largest contributor to growth in global GHG emissions, accounting for nearly 40 percent of the total emissions in 2020. Achieving net zero by 2050 requires an energy transition at an unprecedented scale and speed, even as the region must ensure energy security and affordability. The region must also address its vulnerability to climate change as it comprises many countries highly exposed to climate hazards increasing in severity and frequency with global warming. If managed well, the green transformation in Asia and the Pacific will create opportunities for economies not only in the region, but also around the world for inclusive and sustainable growth. The global economy is still far from achieving net zero by 2050, and the Asia and the Pacific region must play its part to deliver on mitigation and adaptation goals. Understanding Asia’s perspectives on the constraints and issues with climate ambitions, climate policy actions, and constraints is central for devising climate strategies to meet climate goals. To this end, this chapter draws on novel surveys of country authorities and public in the region to distill climate ambitions and challenges faced and identify sources of major gaps in achieving mitigation and adaptation goals. Measures to help close the gaps are drawn from policy discussions with country authorities in bilateral surveillance and related studies.
International Monetary Fund. Strategy, Policy, & Review Department, International Monetary Fund. Finance Dept., and International Monetary Fund. Legal Dept.
This note provides general guidance on the operationalization of the Resilience and Sustainability Facility (RSF) for arrangement requests and reviews. The RSF complements the existing IMF lending toolkit by providing longer-term, affordable financing to members to help them address longer-term structural challenges from climate change and pandemic preparedness. The note has benefited from experience gained during early operationalization of the RSF.
International Monetary Fund. Fiscal Affairs Dept. and International Monetary Fund. Strategy, Policy, & Review Department
This paper reviews the two Climate Macroeconomic Assessment Program (CMAP) pilots and proposes a way forward. It builds on the experience of the previous six Climate Change Policy Assessment (CCPA) pilots, and the recent rollout of the World Bank’s Country Climate and Development Report (CCDR). It also accounts for early experience with countries requesting support under the Fund’s Resilience and Sustainability Trust (RST). Based on the lessons from pilots and recent developments, staff proposes to streamline the CMAP to focus on the Fund’s comparative advantages in the areas of mitigation, PFM and macro-fiscal impact of climate change policies, provide a streamlined CMAP in exceptional circumstances, and expand more targeted CD in particular in support of RSF countries. This focused and tailored approach would benefit members as it is more agile, allows the Fund to serve more members within the same resource envelope and enhance synergies with other Fund products and the World Bank’s CCDR.
International Monetary Fund. Policy Development and Review Dept.
The membership is facing significant challenges, including high inflation, rising food and energy insecurity, elevated debt levels, tightening financial conditions, volatile capital flows and exchange rates, and intensifying geopolitical fragmentation. To this end, the Executive Board Work Program focuses on policy responses and bilateral and multilateral advice to stabilize the global economy and build resilience, critical financial assistance to those countries most affected by these shocks, and capacity development support to help implement policy advice. More than ever, the Fund has a key role to play in promoting international cooperation and collaborative solutions to shared challenges, including those related to climate, digitalization, and inclusion.
The report and its recommendations should also be careful to not impinge upon areas that are still unfolding, such as the RST, crisis response, and CD provision, to avoid unnecessary duplication of efforts and ensure that a coherent and evenhanded framework is in place. I offer qualified and/or partial support to the recommendations, as discussed below, to serve better our SDS members.
Countries have committed, through the Paris Agreement and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), to pursue climate targets and policies that would limit global temperature rise to well below 2 degrees Celsius, compared to pre-industrial levels. A shift toward green public investment will help to mitigate greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. In addition, substantial public investment will be necessary to build public infrastructure that makes economies more resilient to climate change and related natural disasters. Climate change mitigation and adaptation challenges thus compound preexisting needs for public investment to foster the economic recovery from the pandemic and to meet the SDGs in a broader range of areas, often in a context of limited fiscal space. Against this backdrop, a priority for all countries is to manage their public investment efficiently and effectively. To help countries improve the institutions and processes for infrastructure governance (the planning, allocation, and implementation of public investment), the IMF developed in 2015 the Public Investment Management Assessment (PIMA), which has already been applied in over 70 countries. However, the current PIMA does not provide a sufficiently tailored assessment of how public investment management can support climate change mitigation and adaptation. To fill this gap, this paper introduces a new module to the to the current Public Investment Management Assessment (PIMA) framework, the “Climate-PIMA” (C-PIMA), whose goal is to help governments identify potential improvements in public investment institutions and processes to build low-carbon and climate-resilient infrastructure.
This Work Program puts forward an IMF Board agenda focused on activities of critical importance to our members. In line with the strategic directions laid out in the Fall 2021 Global Policy Agenda and the International Monetary and Financial Committee (IMFC) Communiqué, the Work Program supports three policy priorities: (i) vaccinate the world to combat the pandemic everywhere; (ii) calibrate bilateral and multilateral policies to support the recovery and reduce scarring and divergences; and (iii) accelerate the transformation of the global economy to make it greener, more digital, and inclusive. To deliver on this agenda, it is also important to ensure that the Fund remains appropriately equipped to maintain its role at the center of the global financial safety net.
International Monetary Fund. Strategy, Policy, & Review Department
This Management Implementation Plan (MIP) focuses on further strengthening collaboration between the IMF and the World Bank on strategic macro-structural issues. In macro-structural areas, the Fund and the Bank have complementary roles. The Bank provides structural and development-focused assessments and recommendations, while the Fund focuses on integrating macro relevant structural issues in the macroeconomic frameworks and policies. In some areas, including financial sector and public debt sustainability assessments, Bank-Fund collaboration modalities are well established. In other areas, such as climate change, Fund staff is developing comprehensive strategies on how the IMF can step up its engagement and collaboration with external partners, including with the World Bank, to better serve its membership. This MIP proposes concrete steps aimed at further enhancing: • Bank-Fund collaboration on strategic macro-structural issues, with an initial focus on the climate workstream; • Fund staff’s incentives for collaboration with external partners, including the Bank • Access to and exchange of information and knowledge between Bank and Fund staff.