IMF Conference

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Agenda

Opening Remarks	Bo Li, Deputy Managing Director, International Monetary Fund Read the speech
Moderator	Alfred Schipke, Director, Singapore Regional Training Institute, International Monetary Fund
Presenters	Era Dabla-Norris, Assistant Director, Asia and Pacific Department, International Monetary Fund Giacomo Magistretti, Economist, Asia and Pacific Department, International Monetary Fund
Summary and Concluding Remarks	Krishna Srinivasan, Director, Asia and Pacific Department, International Monetary Fund

Following the presentation, there will be an opportunity for Q&As.

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Background

Tackling climate change is an urgent and fundamental challenge. While progress has been made in terms of policy commitments, in Asia as elsewhere, ambitions and implementation still lag well behind what is needed to achieve net zero. Building public support for climate mitigation is a key prerequisite to make meaningful strides towards implementing climate mitigation policies and achieving decarbonization.

In this Staff Discussion Note, we use novel surveys of the public in 28 advanced and emerging market economies, including 11 in Asia, to understand how people perceive climate change and what matters for increased support for governments’ climate actions in some of the largest emitters, as well as countries most vulnerable to climate change.

Along with climate risk perceptions, three key concerns influence public support (or lack thereof) for a carbon pricing policy: (i) Is it effective in reducing emissions? (ii) Will it disproportionately hurt the poor and lower-income households? (iii) Are there co-benefits from improved air quality, health outcomes, and new job creation? Public acceptability of carbon pricing policies increases if revenues are used to address distributional concern or to subsidize green infrastructure and low-carbon technologies. Explaining how a given policy will reduce emissions, it’s co-benefits and that it can be progressive increases support for that policy. The surveys also point to broader-than-expected support for collective action and larger common ground for crafting international agreements.